Cry Out, Curlew
by Evil Is A Relative Term
Summary: Helping others was her passion. It became a revolution. With the power of an open mind, Hermione Granger changed the wizarding world forever.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I only _wish_ I owned Harry Potter.

Summary: Helping others was her passion. It became a revolution. With the power of an open mind, Hermione Granger changed the wizarding world forever.

A/N: So…yes, I'm avoiding revising my original novel. But this idea lingering in my head, so I thought I'd give it a shot. The title is in reference to a superstition that a curlew's call signifies imminent bad weather and to hear one at night foretells the death of someone you know. By the by, this fiction deals heavily in magical creatures. However, the vampires will most certainly not sparkle and werewolves are the recipients of a debilitating curse. In other words, I will stay truer to canon and further from pop culture. Just as a warning.

Cry Out, Curlew

Chapter One

-Prologue-

_If you will not allow them to live like men, why are you surprised when they survive as beasts?_

-Hermione Jean Granger

Hermione Jean Granger, premier witch of her age, had worked at the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures in the Being division for only three months and she _despised_ it. The bureaucracy, the hypocrisy, and the stubborn resistance to reform were the same under Kingsley's administration as it had been in the era of the buffoons that had preceded him. She understood that centuries upon centuries of tradition could not be changed in a single day, but Hermione was beginning to think she could achieve _nothing_ here.

Common sense might tell her that the words of a very new member of the office might not carry much weight, but the response from her coworkers to her ideas told her what she'd feared. The people in this office were often transferred here for disciplinary issues or sheer incompetence and those that were here by choice displayed attitudes eerily reminiscent of Macnair—anything less than human (and that description seemed to cover an unsettling wide array of creatures capable of complex and sentient thought, as well as uncontrollable monsters) needed harsh laws to "keep them in their place." Punishments were harsh and immediate, often after only the scantiest of investigations.

Silently, behind tall Occlumentic walls, she often thought, _It's no wonder they sided with Voldemort._ Especially in the case of werewolves, whose unfortunate curse only manifested itself three days a month, yet spelled the end of all opportunity for advancement in wizarding society. Made less than wage slaves, employment of any kind was difficult for them to procure.

But these were all only subconscious thoughts as she marched into the department on a chilly August morning. Despite what one might think, her briefcase did not bulge with papers, nor did she have a stack of books piled high as her nose, just waiting to topple. After Hermione's discovery of the undetectable extension charm, she'd made liberal use of it. Now she could carry a virtual library of legal texts, back issues of Ministry decrees, and select reference tomes with doing permanent and irreversible damage to her vertebrae.

Her suit was neat but not costly. Her wages were another aspect of the job that was somewhat depressing, as she barely made enough to cover the rent on a flat above a now defunct potions shop. Being so new to the department was one matter, but the others were more infuriating. It was taking an age to repeal all the anti-Muggleborn laws, one of which dictated that Muggleborns could be paid less, if they were allowed to work at all. And the other was good old-fashioned sexism, very alive and well in the wizarding world. No matter her NEWT results, she was female, which meant her time was worth less than a man's.

But, to give Kingsley his due, he was trying to push through reform, opening opportunities for werewolves, vampires, veela, and any other magical creature that decided to try to their hand at gainful employment. Not that many were actually hired on, but if they could meet all other criteria, departments within the Ministry were required to at least grant them an interview.

As her heels flicked against the flagstones past the open office doors of the head of the Being department, Nigel Brimble, Hermione noted that another interviewee was being browbeat by Pippa Parfit, a venomous snake of a secretary for having such a peppy name.

"I'm afraid we can't hire one of your kind in this department. It would be a conflict of interest, you see?" the hateful woman simpered.

The words made Hermione stop in her tracks, especially as a low, reasonable voice said, "I won't allow my condition to interfere with my work."

"No," Parfit told him. "I can't allow it and I'm sure Mr. Brimble would agree. Not after what your kind did under You-Know-Who."

_I think that _your_ kind, the upstanding blood purists, did well enough on their own, _Hermione thought bitterly, even as she wondered what she hoped to accomplish by lingering by the door.

"Besides," that ugly voice continued, "don't you only need blood to live? Why would you need a job?"

_Because clothes and a place to sleep at night cost money, you stupid bint. _

"Please," that soft voice asked again and she couldn't take it anymore.

"Ms. Parfit," she called out as she strode into the room, "I've decided I need an assistant."

The woman's puffy faced showed astonishment and she spluttered, "You're only a junior member of this department. You don't get to request an assistant, just like that, no matter who you're friends with."

Hermione lifted her chin and firmed her shoulders, not about to let such a unfounded accusation throw of her momentum, though she wasn't above capitalizing on her relationship with Harry if it won her this argument. She'd ignored what she could, but this was too much. This kind of blatant discrimination wasn't just unfair, it was _illegal_. "I go through more paperwork in a week than most of the senior members of this department," she bit out. "My productivity rate is unmatched in this department. If I had an assistant, it's quite feasible that I could begin to work through our case backlog. Which is becoming a _remarkable_ mess, thanks to the war-time regulations," she hissed acidly.

As Ron had once said, in one of his few moments of brilliance, while Hermione was generally the most rational and even-tempered of the group, she was scary when roused. Parfit quailed for a moment, but then regrouped. "We don't have any open assistants at present," she snapped. "You'll have to see Mr. Brimble about setting up an interview for one."

"Oh?" Hermione asked archly. "And what position is this gentleman interviewing for?" She pointedly didn't look in the man's direction, but she could feel it as he glanced at her.

Dull little eyes widened as Parfit realized her intention. "He was just leaving," she protested.

"At what point of the interview did he fail?" Hermione demanded. "After all, I am only a junior member of the department. Perhaps your interview was a little _rigorous_ for the position of assistant to a junior."

Hermione adherence to the letter of the law was well-known in the department. Though it was possible no action would be taken against her for her discrimination, Parfit wasn't ready to put it to chance. She could read that in her eyes and the displeased frown that pursed her lips. "He might be suitable," she said at last.

"Good. We might as well do the paperwork now." An outraged flash in her eyes told Hermione that Parfit had been thinking about conveniently forgetting to add the newest member of the department to the payroll.

Twenty minutes of forms later saw Hermione with her very own subordinate, who she hadn't more than glanced at during the process, too intent on seeing no unfortunate mistakes were made in the hiring of Alastair Lloyd, vampire. She'd even walked the completed forms over to the department that dealt with hiring of employees herself.

Running a hand through her bushy brown hair with a tired sigh, she muttered, "We'll have to see about finding a desk for him…"

As she returned to her own department, she found the man waiting patiently for her outside her office. Which, when she'd first received it, had been little more than a disused closet, but charms were wondrous things. She was certain she could fit in another desk without trouble.

Not wanting to appear rude, but still curious about him, she looked over her new assistant speculatively. Almost cadaverously thin, his dark hair falling into his eyes, he looked to be only a little older than her, perhaps in his late twenties, though the gauntness of his face made it difficult to determine his age. Of course, if her initial assessment of vampire was correct, he could be significantly older than what his appearance suggested. His suit and robes were a little ragged, but meticulously clean.

"Why don't we step into my office, Mr. Lloyd?" she asked as she motioned for him to enter before her.

Once they were inside she closed the door. For someone almost half a foot taller than her and possessing supernatural speed and reflexes, it was peculiar to watch him play nervously with his hands. "What do you wish of me?" he asked. The deep brown of his irises was almost swallowed by the black of pupil.

Hermione blinked. "I will admit to stretching the truth some, but I really could use an assistant. I do assume you know your way around at least some basic dictation spells and aren't completely hopeless at filing?"

"I cannot perform spells of any kind," Lloyd said stiffly and Hermione was briefly embarrassed, because she _knew_ that the vampire virus destroyed any ability to use a wand.

"Well, then you'll just have to take diction manually or we'll see about enchanting some quills for your use," Hermione said briskly. After all, offices in the Muggle world operated at least as efficiently and they certainly didn't have magic. If anything, the Ministry ran only on the magic of inefficiency. "You can do filing then? I'll show you around the archive room later, though good luck to finding anything in that black hole of paperwork. And I'll be sure to show you each of the departments. Interdepartmental memos are all well and good, but many people here won't even look at a paper for days unless you hand it to them in person and make them read it in front of you." Lloyd stared at her like she'd grown a second head.

She flushed when she realized how critical she sounded, but she didn't take back her words.

"You actually intend to hire me as your assistant." The vampire sounded rather astounded by the fact.

"I have _already_ hired you as my assistant," Hermione pointed out. "What sort of position were you looking for when you came here to apply?" she asked curiously.

Lloyd's hollow face with its large, large eyes had the look Sirius had sometimes worn, like he was a dog beaten down by the world, "I would have taken anything," he said softly. "The new regulations require that a vampire have a registered Sire or Master or hold gainful employment, otherwise they fall under the purview of the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures."

Hermione's eyes widened. "What? That bill should never have passed!"

"I don't know about that, but I do know that masterless vampires were beginning to disappear. As my Sire was killed during the war, I did not wish to be among that number."

Hermione bit her lip as she brought her emotions under control. If vampires really were disappearing, it wasn't a wonder that Harry hadn't told her anything. The Department of Magical Law Enforcement even knew such disappearances were occurring, they likely thought as the case didn't involve witches or wizards, it would be the responsibility of her department to handle it. And her department was either responsible for dangerous ignorance in this matter or criminal negligence.

She was startled when Lloyd offered her a roll of parchment sealed with wax. "My lineage papers," he explained. "As my most direct superior, I am bound by law to present you with evidence of my bloodline. It's been ratified by the Department of Records."

_Like horses_, she thought darkly as she unsealed the parchment. Though at least there was good cause for this, as certain vampire lines had tendencies that needed to be watched. Like a taste for flesh that went beyond the vampiric need for blood or pheromone qualities that could put a veela female to shame. Nothing alarming leaped off the page at her, but Hermione made mental note to research some of the names she was less familiar with.

"You know," she said as she glanced over the top of the page at him, "while it might say direct superior, I believe it intended for you to give it to our manager, Mr. Brimble. Not me."

"If you will pardon my presumption, I would rather those papers be in your hands," Lloyd told her.

Hermione laid the weathered paper down on her desk and met Lloyd's eyes directly. "I want to tell you something now, before we begin working together," she said. "I want to change this world, Mr. Lloyd. The system of laws that facilitate the rise of Dark Lords like Voldemort must be changed. I do not intend to blindly destroy thousands of years of tradition, but some must be discarded for our society to live without fear of fellow creature, a fear caused in large part by misunderstandings that could be corrected by knowledge."

"And how do you intend to see this change achieved?" the vampire asked her curiously.

"Well," Hermione admitted sheepishly, "that's where I'm having a bit of trouble."

There was a long moment of silence, as Lloyd watched her carefully. "I would like to see this world of yours," he told her at last, and the first tentative bonds of trusts were built between them.

A/N: Well, what do you think?


	2. The Silent War in the Streets of London

Disclaimer: I have no rights to the characters I shamelessly mold for my own plot. Except the original characters. Those do belong to me.

A/N: This isn't purely a fill-in-the-blank between DH and The Epilogue kind of story, even though there are major elements of that. I am making an effort to keep Hermione in-character, so she won't be eloping with Malfoy anytime soon. Or ever. But as I find abandoning your comrades in the midst of a war _unacceptable_ and as I dislike Ron's cannon treatment of Hermione on principle (being mean to someone is not justified by attraction and jealousy is not a healthy emotion inside any relationship—even platonic ones like his friendship with Harry), for a good part of this story Hermione is going to be incredibly career-focused, something I don't believe is out of character for her. So don't expect much romantic fluff, though I believe that some solid Harry and Hermione friendship is in order. Though they're definitely in that just-graduated-everyone-doing-their-own-lives mode right now, but soon more of the regular characters will make an appearance. After that, well, we'll see. By the way, did Rowling ever say if Malfoy got an actual job? Because I have some plans, but I'm trying to keep it canon.

Cry Out, Curlew

Chapter Two

-The Silent War in the Streets of London-

_If you rob a man of his dignity, what is to keep him from abandoning his honour?_

–_Hermione Jean Granger_

Like many people of abnormal intelligence and intense focus, Hermione had a very low threshold of tolerance for slow or lazy people, though diligent effort could redeem them. Also for people who squandered their natural advantages, like the Slytherins who'd been allowed to coast through Hogwarts on the strength of their family names. That had less to do with Malfoy, surprisingly enough, and more to do with the inbred lumps that'd followed him. No matter that he wasn't the wizard his pride made him think he was, the only class he'd ever done poorly at had been Care of Magical Creatures.

Unfortunately, her department seemed populated with the incompetent from "good families." So when Lloyd appeared to be a buffer between her work and the nagging and whining twits who appeared at her door, she thought he was worth his weight in gold for that service alone.

But her new assistant came with several other advantages. One involved the ability to wander through less-than-desirable sections of magical London with some impunity. Even if Lloyd had looked at her like she was moonstruck when she'd suggested the trip.

"So this was the last place Mr. Yardham was seen?" Hermione asked as she examined the alley. The impulse to look into the disappearances of the Master vampires had been simmering in her mind since Lloyd had mentioned it almost two weeks ago. However, she'd run into some difficulties almost immediately. As she'd suspected, the official channels had been useless when it came to information, but even more irksome was what she'd discovered when she'd looked into the wizarding _modus operandi_ for crime scene investigation to see if there were any useful spells she might utilize.

They were still using techniques developed more than a hundred years ago! As if criminals wouldn't be able to develop counterspells in that length of time. They still hadn't been able to develop a spell to determine the source of a spell by its magical afterimage, tiny magical traces left behind after every spell was cast. All their diagnostic spells focused on the wands! And they couldn't even tell who'd been wielding it at the time! In all the records she'd looked over, not a single wand had been checked for prints to make certain no one but the wand's owner had handled them! She'd hoped those wizards who'd nearly arrested Harry during the Quidditch World Cup years ago had simply not instituted proper protocol due to the confusion. But so far as she could discern, there was no protocol!

Those high-minded purebloods might dismiss Muggles as little more than barbarians because they couldn't use magic, but when it came to criminal procedure, they were ages ahead. It was no wonder that Sirius had been so easily framed in the Pettigrew debacle.

So she'd had to do her preliminary research in Muggle libraries; then had come the tedious process of finding equivalent spells that could be adapted for her own use. Hermione had counted herself lucky that she possessed near-perfect recall and an understanding of basic spellbuilding principles (something noticeably absent from the Hogwarts curriculum but a subject of much fascination for a Muggleborn girl who wanted to understand not only how magic might be used, but the mechanisms by which it worked), otherwise the research might have stretched on for an indeterminate period while the trail grew even colder.

Not for a moment had Hermione considered that the disappearances might be something best left alone. If asked, Harry and Ron would readily confess that nosiness was defining character trait for Hermione, though they'd also say it was as likely to be a character failing.

"Yes," Lloyd answered her question, swallowing nervously. For a much-feared creature of the night, Lloyd had a number of nervous tells that made Hermione frown every time she considered how he might have developed them. "Should we really be here?" he inquired.

"This is a public area," Hermione told him, "which will only make this more difficult. Were there signs of struggle during any of the other disappearances?"

"I don't remember anyone mentioning it," Lloyd said thoughtfully, "but I've never actually spoken to anyone who saw them being taken."

"Were there witnesses?" she asked sharply, "Anyone who might have seen anything?"

"I'll have to ask around," Lloyd reported. "Everything I know about the disappearances is mostly hearsay, but I know a few of the vampires whose Masters disappeared." Hermione could sense his capitulation in his silent agreement to proceed with the investigation.

"To be certain I have this right," she said as she slowly walked the length of the alley, peering out into the dimming light at the nearby buildings, "a Master vampire is one that has a kind of psychic influence on his followers, but is not necessarily their creator. A Sire is a vampire that is the direct blood source of a fledgling vampire and cannot be disobeyed."

Lloyd nodded and Hermione thought he might be a little bit pleased by her knowledge. "Not all vampires have the power necessary to become a Sire," he warned, "but all but the lowliest of vampires can turn others. It's not that uncommon to be sire-less, but those vampires are looked at as 'uncontrollable.'"

Hermione snorted. "Yes, it's terribly inconvenient when everyone has free will. So, all of the vampires that have disappeared have been Masters, then?"

"All the ones I've heard of," Lloyd admitted, "but if the vampires are being killed, fledglings still tightly bound to a Sire might be damaged by it. I've heard no such rumors."

"So, if we consider it in terms of power, there are three tiers." She ticked them off on her fingers, "we have fledglings and what we'll call common vampires for reference purposes, Master vampires, and Sire vampires."

"It's possible that tier three vampires might be missing that no one has noticed, but the ones we are aware of are from tier two. Which means that they may be afraid of confronting a tier one, a Sire vampire. Or it could be simple expediency, in that there aren't that many Sires and any one going missing might cause an outcry in the vampire community, perhaps even enough that the Ministry might be forced to launch an investigation," Hermione suddenly realized she'd been pacing and voicing her thoughts aloud. Looking over at Lloyd, she was surprised to notice he'd pulled a quite modern notepad and self-inking quill from his robes and was taking notes.

He glanced at her when it registered that she'd fallen silent. "I thought you might like to look over your thoughts later," he said without a hint of sarcasm, for which she wanted to kiss him. She was suddenly very glad she'd followed her instinct and hadn't invited Harry and Ron on this trip. They'd both been so busy lately, what with Harry in the Auror training course and Ron attempting to fill Fred's shoes at the joke shop, and she just knew what they'd say.

"Well," she said, clearing her throat and somehow feeling pleasantly embarrassed, "have there been any other similarities between the disappearances besides who has been taken? Where they all in this area?"

"If you've decided to commit to this investigation, I'll compile a list of the rumors and cross-reference them for similarities, but I believe a number of the disappearances have happened in this area." He looked suddenly awkward. "This area is known for illegal housing," he said in a low voice. "So it is possible disappearances may have went unnoticed. Many of us, even the Masters, cannot afford proper housing, especially after the war. Especially if they have a nest."

"Nest?"

"Fledglings. Vampires often live in interdependent communities." Which would mean that they'd need something bigger than a two-room flat, in an urban magical community where property had been at a premium even before the war.

It continually surprised Hermione how much of this she'd never learned, for all her reading. The best tomes on vampires she'd discovered in her research had been in the Defense Against the Dark section and they'd only covered ways to ward off vampires. She'd yet to discover an anthropological or sociological account of the vampire experience. Or the werewolf experience, or the lives of goblins in any other context than the Goblin Wars hundreds of years ago.

Dismissing those thoughts before she had another unproductive outburst, the likes of which had made the clerk at Flourish and Blotts stare, she turned her attention back to the current situation.

"Can their fledglings tell if their Masters have been killed?" Hermione asked, curious about how the bond between Master and fledgling functioned. After the resistance of the house elves themselves to her efforts with S.P.E.W., she'd eventually resolved to at least respect the magical bonds the younger her hadn't fullest understood as an integrated psychological component of a creature. But that didn't mean that need gave anyone the right to exploit them, no matter how many generations of the family an elf had served, any more than a human's need for companionship justified domestic abuse.

"Yes," Lloyd told her, "and that's why we are certain that these disappearances are permanent."

"Well," Hermione said slowly, adjusting to the idea that these weren't simply disappearances, but murders. That made the exercise she'd devised take on a totally different nature. She'd meant only to determine the violence level of the abductions. "Well, let's begin."

Setting up a ward came as almost second-nature. Lloyd had to move to the edge of the ward to explain what was happening to a bolder resident of the area come to see what was happening. Hermione couldn't hear their conversation, but Lloyd kept gesturing in her direction until she completed the barrier that would hide them from sight.

After that he rejoined her, so Hermione explained as she worked, which had always been rather comforting if she was experimenting. Which, admittedly, wasn't one of her passions. She preferred to use spells that had been tested and the results of which were well known (even rather archaic spells unearthed from lesser known books fell into this category), which was why she had struggled so much with the Half-Blood Prince. Deviating from process had been a real struggle for a long time, until people like Umbridge and Thicknesse had forcefully broken her confidence in the establishment and her current position at the Ministry had driven it home.

"Muggle criminologists use a chemical called luminol to detect trace amounts of blood," she began, her voice falling easily into the bossy tones of her lecture mode, "which causes blood to luminesce, or glow in the dark. What I'm going to do follows a similar theory, only it is supposed to detect trace amounts of magical energy. A spell strong enough to subdue, or kill," she amended, "a Master vampire should leave a significant imprint. More than the everyday kind of spell that should be used in this alley."

Lloyd looked a little incredulous, either at the idea itself, or at her explanation, but Hermione forged ahead. "But I'm hedging my bets by focusing on spells cast with some sort of malicious intent. That idea is derived using the same theory of the magic that powers Sneakoscopes, so I'm almost certain that component will work."

"My other idea was to see if I could detect any blood at the scene of the crime, as it were," she admitted, "but anything involving the blood of sentient creatures is typically classified as grey or dark magic. And if one doesn't conveniently have a family library of dark art literature at one's fingertips," she said bitterly, "it's a little difficult to find information, even if all one wants to do with the blood is make it glow. Especially with current censorship issues. And I quite frankly didn't know where one might buy luminol, so we're going to proceed with my first idea."

Rotating her wrist to dispel lingering anxiety that the spell wouldn't work as she hoped, Hermione took a deep breath and began the casting. Flick, flick, flip of the wrist, and a murmured incantation, just in case it still wasn't quite right to minimize unintentional side effects, and dense green fog began to pour from her wand tip. It hugged the ground, curling across the area until the entire ward was filled.

"Don't worry, the fog is harmless," she reassured Lloyd as he took a step back from the encroaching mist. He looked unhappy, but he allowed the admittedly eerie fog to twine about his legs. As it dissipated, denser areas began to form until she was left with nearly solid clumps of it in some areas. Too many areas, she thought with dismay.

Apparently, in her enthusiasm, she'd overlooked the amount of malicious spells that might be cast in a fairly shady alley in magical London.

"Well, the idea itself was sound, though I'm still not sure what you hope to prove," Lloyd said carefully. "Is there a way to tell which spells are newest?"

"Yes," Hermione said. "I can cast an overlay spell that will reveal magical saturation by luminosity. Newer spells will glow brighter," she clarified, "because traces of the spell haven't been reintegrated into the environment yet." The next part was trickier wand work, but she was more confident now, even though she was a little disappointed in how difficult it would be to determine if one of these spells had been used on Mr. Yardham. This had been her best chance at confirming her suspicion that it was wizards at work, not some sort of coup among the vampires.

She watched silently as Lloyd moved across the glowing ground, carefully inspecting the glowing clouds. "Here," Lloyd said, pointing at a patch that didn't seem especially bright. "This is where the attack happened."

"What makes you so certain?" she asked curiously.

"The smell of blood only a few weeks old. And it's vampire," he added.

Hermione's hands went to her hips. "You could have done that from the beginning," she accused.

Lloyd shook his head. "Dead blood is difficult to detect, as it holds no…attraction for me. It was only after I determined which markers indicated spells cast within the time frame for the abduction that I could smell it."

"How can you tell it's vampire?" she challenged.

Lloyd grimaced. "The smell. Vampire blood is dead by nature, but the smell doesn't dissipate like normal blood, because until the vampire himself dies, it does not undergo the normal process of decay. I would estimate that Mr. Yardham died quite recently, some time after his abduction."

"What else can you tell me?" Hermione asked curiously.

"This isn't enough to kill a Master. It's not even enough to weaken them. Magic would have been needed to subdue him," Lloyd said, his tone short. "Wizards took him."

Hermione grimaced. "That's what I was afraid of."

"Please, may we return to safer quarters now, Miss Granger? Even though you're a talented witch, this is not a good neighborhood for your kind to be in after dark," Lloyd pleaded and Hermione acquiesced gracelessly, still too concerned about the confirmation that it was wizards to willingly leave, though she'd more or less exhausted her limited repertoire of spells.

_Maybe Harry might know something_,she noted, _surely his Auror training would include spells to _find _the criminals. _

She made a kind of_ eep_ sound of surprise when Lloyd stepped in front of her. She was about to snap at him, but she noted the tenseness of his frame. "So, Alastair Lloyd," a strange voice challenged, "what kind of creature have you brought into my nest? You needn't look at me like that," it continued, "I want only to speak to her."

When it didn't seem as if Lloyd would move, Hermione spoke. "It's alright, move aside," she ordered, grip tight on her wand. He glanced back at her over his shoulder and she noticed how nervous he looked, but then he took a few steps to the side, revealing the speaker.

Old, old eyes looked out of a tanned, leathery face framed by hair the color of yellowed bone. This vampire had been old when he'd been turned and there was no telling how many decades, centuries even, had passed since then. "I am Abram Bone," he introduced himself.

"He's a Sire," Lloyd murmured, "who claims this entire neighborhood."

"Or the vampire population, at the least," Abram replied, apparently having no trouble hearing him. "Would it be too much to ask that your ladyship introduce herself, or is your mistress' blood pure enough that she doesn't deign to speak to lesser creatures such as us?"

"I'm Hermione Granger," she answered. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Bone, but I'm neither Lloyd's mistress nor a pureblood."

"If you are not his mistress, then you must be his lover," Abram suggested.

"I'm his employer," Hermione snapped. "Lloyd is my assistant at the Ministry."

Abram blinked, looking surprised. "How very surprising. And what business does the Ministry have in my neighborhood?"

Even though Lloyd kept sending her anxious looks, Hermione told Abram the truth. "I'm not here in an official capacity. Though I might give you the official line about the Ministry being concerned about all the creatures under it's control, we both know how false that is. The truth is I'm only pursuing this as a personal interest."

That made the old vampire smile, which was more disconcerting than comforting. Many of his teeth were jagged, as if they'd been ground or broken into sharp points. "I've heard of you, Hermione Granger. You were one of the heroes of that damnable war. Tell me, why are you interested in the disappearances of a few vampires? It should hardly concern such a laudable soul. And it isn't really any of wizardkinds business."

"Because someone needs to care," Hermione said bluntly. "And it should be our business, because it looks like it's a wizard who's responsible."

"Miss Granger!" Lloyd said, apparently appalled.

"It's obvious to anyone who cared to look who was responsible for this, not matter what sort of story about vampiric infighting the Ministry might care to run if this comes to light," Hermione snapped. "I just wanted to confirm my suspicions."

Abram chuckled without humor. "If you've come to simply gawk, your presence in my nest isn't necessary."

"I want to help," Hermione said firmly.

The vampire gave her a long, searching look. "Incautious help often brings about more harm than good. However, I will remember you, if we should discover anything of interest where you might be of use to us. Goodbye, Hermione Granger," and with that he dismissed her.

Hermione allowed Lloyd to pull her away, but she watched the receding back of the Sire until he disappeared into the dark. He continued his silence and did not release his hold on her elbow even after they were well clear of the neighborhood. Grimacing, Hermione realized her subordinate was angry at her. Well, alright, she'd done something equally as foolish as anything Harry had tried, but still…well, perhaps his ire _was _justified, so Hermione kept silent as Lloyd escorted her through the streets.

"Where do you live?" he bit out eventually.

Hermione gave him directions, but even that caused him to stop in his tracks. "You live off Knockturn Alley?" he hissed, rounding on her. "Are you mad, Miss Granger, or just foolish?" For a moment she was back in the dungeons, Professor Snape bearing down on her with his formidable presence, but then she was back in London, accompanied by a nervous vampire. The reminder of days that would never come again made her ache, but she pulled herself solidly back into the present.

"It escaped the worst of the damage during the war," she said defensively, "and what with the Ministry raids, it's as safe as anywhere. And it's not like it's on the main thoroughfare."

"It's _Knockturn Alley_," he emphasized, as if she didn't understand where she'd been living these last few months since the atmosphere at the Burrow had become too much to bear.

"You should at least see it before you criticize," she recommended. "Would you mind if we Side-Along? It'll be quicker, so you can get home."

When he voiced no objection, she linked her arm more firmly with his and turned on her heel, feeling the familiar pressure of Apparation as she pictured the desultory storefront that virtually assured no one would bother to break into her residence. If the appearance didn't stop them, there were several wards that certainly would. At one point it may have been an attractive store as such things went, three stories of dark stone, the charmed iron bars in the windows done in a rather elaborate diamond pattern, but age, neglect, and the generally seedy air of Knockturn Alley had all done their work.

"Welcome to home," Hermione said cheerfully when they appeared before the Phial & Philter.

"You live in a potions shop?" Lloyd asked, staring up at the narrow stone façade.

"Well, technically I live in the flat on the third floor. The last owner used to live there, but he disappeared almost two years ago and Gringotts foreclosed on the property. It's a bit tight, but I manage to make rent on it."

"The flat?" he echoed hollowly. Apparently the disappearance of the last owner had been a bit much.

"Well, actually, I suppose I'm making payments on the whole building." As it was a commercial building in a fairly undesirable location and she'd caught it only days before the property simply went to auction, she'd worked out a price that didn't quite cut to the quick, but came close. However, when compared to real estate in the more desirable locations of magical London, especially considering how much of it had been damaged and how that had driven prices even higher, it had seemed more than manageable.

Even some of the less desirable locations, as a result of wartime fallout, had enough lingering curses that they were mandating the hiring of a Ministry-certified curse breaker to look over the properties before new residents were allowed to move in. And while she might know a Weasely cursebreaker who wouldn't charge her an arm and a leg, she'd preferred to take advantage of the Ministry initiative to rebuild the magical commercial districts of London. The special tax exemption had looked ever more appealing as she'd looked over flats that charged twice the rent for a quarter of the space.

In about five years, she'd actually own the building outright, but she called it 'rent' because she didn't intend to live at the Phial that long. And she supposed she could have lived much more cheaply in Muggle London, but when she was such a high-risk target after the war, she couldn't risk her neighbors. Living here at the Phial virtually eliminated that worry, as excepting squatters, the surrounding buildings were abandoned.

"Would you like to come in?" Hermione prompted when Lloyd continued to stare at the building. "I'm afraid I don't have much to offer, but can you take tea?"

"Yes," Lloyd said weakly.

Hermione waved her wand in a complex pattern over the door, muttering to herself all the while. Satisfied, she reached into a pocket and removed a rather old-fashioned key, unlocking the door. She waited into Lloyd had proceeded cautiously inside before shutting the door.

"Your door ward seems rather complex," he said politely.

Hermione waved the compliment off. "Showmanship," she explained. "What would happen if I had to get inside in a hurry? Of course I wouldn't use an active ward. The passive ward does more than enough. Did you feel it as we passed the threshold?"

"It simply felt like we were coming in out of the cold."

"That's the exact feeling of the ward recognizing you as a guest. Come on, let's go upstairs." She flushed as Lloyd glanced around the bottom floor at the cobwebbed stock. "I use pest control spells," she hurried to explain, "but, well, I'm not home often. I haven't even bothered to go through the inventories," she said, shrugging helplessly.

"Some of this might be quite valuable," Lloyd commented as they climbed the stairs to reveal an even dustier storage area.

"Likely," Hermione agreed, "but I just don't have _time. _Being a proper potions shopkeeper would be a full time profession."

Though she did sometimes wonder what the last owner had bought with the loan he'd used the store as collateral for. Rare potions ingredients? But between her job and the related research Hermione just didn't have either the time or the energy to invest herself in another major project. She'd learned not to overextend herself in her third year.

But her embarrassment over the state of her residence ended at the third floor. Scrupulously clean, everything was in its proper place. While she might pretend the first and second floors didn't exist, even when she was exhausted she felt better knowing that she would come back to a clean and well-organized flat. The crockery matched and her bed was always made, because the disorder of a home reflected disorder of the mind. And at the end of the day, Hermione _liked_ being an organized person.

She ushered him into her sitting area, then bustled over to her small kitchen. She was a little glad she was playing host to a vampire when she opened her cupboards. Hermione hadn't realized how bare they were, but they did provide the ingredients for a pot of tea. Lloyd was looking over the open living area with curious eyes. "Do your friends know where you live?" he asked critically and Hermione winced.

"No," she admitted as she set the tea service onto her coffee table with a rattle of china. "They'd only worry."

"And this would be a bad thing?"

"I'm perfectly fine here," she told him.

"You're too incautious," he chided. "Late night trips to dangerous areas, talking to powerful creatures of ambiguous morals, inviting strange vampires up to have tea. If your teachers from Hogwarts could see you now, what would they say?"

Hermione blew steam from her tea, a smile tugging at her lips. _They'd probably award points to Gryffindor, after they finished scolding us. _"You might be surprised. And where do you live?" she challenged.

"It's safer for me," he insisted.

Brown eyes examined her companion critically. "You're looking very peaked lately," Hermione noted, "are you eating well?"

"I manage," Lloyd said stiffly, suddenly looking wary.

"And you never told me where you live. Do you belong to a nest?" she prodded.

"No," Lloyd answered.

"You do _have_ a home, don't you?" It was only after the question left her mouth that Hermione realized how indelicate it sounded.

"I stay with friends," Lloyd said slowly. "I would prefer that you not ask what kinds of friends."

Hermione blinked. "Very well," she answered carefully. "But you are eating?" Lloyd _had_ been paler than usual lately, the dark moons under his eyes deeper.

"You keep me very busy," he said lightly, apparently trying to change the tone. "I hardly think you eat. If I didn't know better, I'd think you were a creature that lived off information."

"Toast, mostly," Hermione quipped, for all that it was the truth. "But really Lloyd, you need to take care of yourself. What will I do if I'm short an assistant?"

"Probably continue to forge on regardless," he answered dryly. "And blood isn't exactly something one can run out to the grocer and buy. Willing donors are in much shorter supply these days. And with the restrictions of Clause 73 of the International Code of Wizarding Secrecy, we can hardly go to the Muggles for fear of Ministry reprisal."

"Could you drink animal blood that's already been drained? Before it began to separate and break down, of course."

"Well, I suppose so," Lloyd answered. "I certainly haven't tried it. You are aware that butchers haven't been allowed to sell blood to vampires since the Todd case in the 1900s, where it was discovered the blood he was selling was human."

"Wizarding butchers, but not Muggle butchers. Wait here for me," she ordered, surging to her feet and almost tripping down the stairs. As soon as she cleared her wards, she Apparated to the small town she'd once called home. It was more a matter of convenience than necessity, as she knew the butcher sold blood to his patron for a number of traditional dishes. Seven minutes and a small moment of fear that she'd forgotten to include Muggle currency in her purse later, she returned to the Phial, pint of pig's blood in hand.

Lloyd was giving her that look again, the one that suggested she'd grown as second head as she vanished the tea in his cup, refilling it with the blood. One warming spell later and she was prepared to test a new hypothesis, one that said the blood of other large mammals might be similar enough to human blood to support the dietary needs of a vampire. "Drink," she encouraged him.

"It's blood," he pointed out.

"Exactly. And you're a vampire."

"Where did you even get this?" he asked.

"I bought it at a Muggle butcher's."

He gave her an exasperated look. "Even if I can drink this, this isn't a solution. I need blood daily, preferably more than once a day, similar to your own needs. If I begin to buy that much blood, even if the butcher himself doesn't get suspicious, it's likely the Ministry wouldn't like it. And I can't Apparate, so I can't simply pop in and out of all the butcher's shops in England."

Hermione sniffed haughtily. "If it works, I'll simply find a butcher near London that specializes in large-quality orders. If I tell them I've opened a restaurant that serves traditional dishes, there's no need for them to be suspicious."

Lloyd still didn't look entirely convinced, but he took a cautious sip nonetheless. "I can't speak for the flavor," he said after a moment, "but otherwise it seems sufficient."

"Let's just try it like this for a while," Hermione encouraged him. "No one will think it suspicious if I drag you here occasionally for paperwork and I'll see about doing something about the butcher. Do you think a stasis or cooling spell might work better to keep the blood fresh?"

Hermione was astonished how quickly Lloyd improved after that, the sunken cheekbones filling out, his skin losing its unhealthy sallow tone, and some but not all of his nervous tics disappearing within days of actually being able to feed regularly. His cautious personality didn't change, however, he still looking as if he expected his newfound position and health to disappear at any moment.

A/N: Wow, that turned out like a crime novel, which was really not my intention when I wrote it. The coming chapters will have more social reform, promise, but it's a legendarily slow process. And while I distinctly remember Olivander conjuring wine while testing one of the champions wands during the Triwizard Tournaments, that seems to go against the principles established in the last book about conjuring water or food. But, well, that could just be my faulty memory. And we don't see any magic this complex in the books, but I figure that we do have fairly complex spells out there once you get outside the Standard Book of Spells.

As for the why a vampire wouldn't simply go to a wizarding butcher for blood? For one, I doubt the wizard would sell it and for another, the narrow minded thinking that has the


	3. The War at Home and Abroad

Disclaimer: One day, I will surprise all of you by publishing a disclaimer that says I own everything in the story you're about to read. Until then, know that copyright belongs to the appropriate parties.

A/N: The reason I decided to write this story was partially because all my other stories were so dark. I wanted to confirm that there was still some strength left in the human spirit. And Hermione seemed like the perfect character for that project.

Cry Out, Curlew

Chapter Three

-The War at Home and Abroad-

Harry Potter always knew things had gotten bad when Hermione was too busy to write. She was a religiously faithful penpal, delivering reams of parchment to the newly restored Grimmauld Place every week detailing her newest ideas, projects, and solicitously inquiring after his own training. He'd moved out only days after Hermione had left the Burrow, feeling even more like he was intruding on the family's grief with the only other outsider gone. And he wasn't quite ready to confront the Ginny situation yet, which was inevitable in such close quarters. So he'd moved back in with Kreacher, having Hermione help him re-erect the fallen and damaged wardings.

When the normal letter had failed to arrive, he decided to walk down two floors to her department. He hadn't seen the bushy-haired witch in a while, after all. "Excuse me, can you direct me to Hermione Granger's office?" he inquired of the witch manning the front desk.

She didn't even look up from the copy of Witch Weekly she was reading. "Down that hall at the end," she said, waving vaguely in the direction of a hallway.

Harry walked past a row of silent offices. There was none of the bustle here he was used to in the Auror offices, where people were always coming or leaving at all hours. They still had a long way to go before the investigation of suspected Death Eaters were even close to finished and a few of the more notorious and known criminals had even managed to elude them again.

Even Lucius Malfoy had managed to obtain a pardon yet again. Apparently Lord Voldemort's residence at the Manor had been viewed as an of act coercion and their defection near the end of the war had apparently been enough to lead to their current freedom.

Remembering how haggard the Malfoy patriarch had looked by the end of the war, Harry still couldn't feel pity for the man that had been a fundamental part of Voldemort's second rise to power. That was more Hermione's domain, liking people or creatures that really didn't deserve it.

The door to what he supposed was Hermione's office was open, which was unsurprising. Despite her impatience with her work being interrupted, she also would be unlikely to turn people away. He thought for a moment he'd come to the wrong place when he glanced to the left of the door, meeting the gaze of a dark-haired man. "May I help you?" he inquired, his tone surprisingly soft for such a tall, thin man. Like he never raised his voice, which was also at odds with the brazen tones of the drill masters in the Auror Department.

"Sorry," Harry apologized, "I was looking for Hermione. Guess I got the wrong office."

"Miss Granger has just stepped out for a moment," the man said, "I can take a message for her or you may wait," and he indicated two chairs pushed against the wall next to his desk, one of which was filled with a stack of files that looked as if only magic was holding it up.

"Er, I'll just wait. Do you know when she'll be back?"

Just then he heard a familiar voice from the hallway. "Lloyd, did Magnus drop off those files yet?"

"Just a moment ago," the man, Lloyd, responded.

"Oh, hello Harry," Hermione greeted as she entered her office, an open file in her hand. "What brings you here?"

"You do know that you're supposed to be getting ready to go home now," he teased, suddenly glad to see work at the Ministry hadn't changed his best friend. "Or do you not allow clocks in your office?"

Hermione thumped him on the chest with her folder. "Harry James Potter," she chided, "are you dodging out of work already?"

"Would I do something like that?" he laughed, holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "But really, you're not pulling ridiculous hours are you?"

"It depends upon your definition of ridiculous," Lloyd murmured.

Hermione made a face at the man. "Oh," she said, perking up. "Has Lloyd introduced himself yet?" She didn't wait for either of them to respond. "Harry, this is Alastair Lloyd, my assistant. Lloyd, this is Harry Potter, my best friend."

Recent training in the department had made him leery of shaking hands, but Lloyd returned his cordial nod without looking offended. "Snatched up an assistant already?" Harry asked incredulously. "Who'd you _Imperio_?"

Hermione sniffed. "Really," she said repressively, "you need to stop accusing me of things. Would it be to outlandish to think that _maybe_ someone recognized my hard work?"

Harry didn't mean to stare at her quite so incredulously, but it happened anyway. This time she smacked his chest with her hand instead of the folder. "Harry," she chided.

"Hermione," he mimed, smiling now. There were a lot of rough bits to being friends with Hermione Granger, but when times were good, they were the best. He owed her more than he could say and he could always depend on her to be there, bossy and reliable, far beyond what anyone should ever have to ask of a friend. He was struck by a sudden, nostalgic impulse. "Why don't you come over to Grimmauld Place for dinner?" he asked. "I'm sure Kreacher misses you," he added, smiling impishly.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "I'm very busy Harry."

"Busy enough not to write," Harry noted. "I noticed, you know. Which is why I suggested you come over. If you'd like, we can invite Ron," he suggested. "If we have dinner on short rations, we can even relive the good old days."

"I see you're developing a gallows sense of humor upstairs," Hermione said dryly. "Those days are neither old nor good. But I suppose I can come over," she allowed. "I've been wanting to pick your brain about something."

"So long as you don't mean that literally," he retorted.

Hermione treated him to a long-suffering sigh. "Just let me gather my things. Lloyd," she turned to the man, who was already rising from his desk, "thanks for your work today. Do you mind letting yourself in? I don't know when I'll be home."

"It isn't a problem," the man replied. "Good night, Miss Granger."

After he left and Hermione bustled about the office, shoving what had to be an entire filing cabinet's contents into a slender briefcase; Harry turned the last bit of conversation over in his mind. "You know," he said suspiciously, "I didn't know you had a flatmate."

She shot him a look. "No, Harry, I don't have a flatmate. And until you promise not to tell Ron, who will then tell his mother, who will then never give me any peace, I will not tell you where I live."

"You could just live at me with me at Grimmauld Place," he recommended as he helped her into her cloak.

Hermione laughed. "And be hexed to death by Ginny? I think not. How's that situation going, by the way?"

Harry shrugged uncomfortably. "I just don't know," he admitted as the passed the front desk and headed toward the elevators. "It's…like we're different people than we were before the war. I still like her," he rushed to reassure Hermione and he wondered internally why he sounded so defensive about it, "but I've graduated and she's still at Hogwarts for a year yet. Maybe we just need a little time, to sort things out in our own lives, before we make any other decisions."

Hermione raised a dark brow. "That's all well and good Harry, but have you told _her_ any of this?"

Huffing in frustration, Harry ran a hand through his hair, probably leaving it sticking up at odd angles. "No," he bit out. "Why can't girls be more like you?" he asked Hermione.

It only settled in what he'd said when Hermione said in her dangerous voice, "And what do you mean to imply be that, Harry Potter?"

Harry groaned internally. "I didn't mean you're not a girl," he grumbled, "because obviously you are, but you're just easier to talk to than Ginny."

"That's probably because you aren't dating me," Hermione said matter-of-factly. "And we've been friends for over seven years now. And if we muck it up a bit, we've always come to an understanding, haven't we? So of course it's easier to talk to me."

_Of course_, Harry thought, rolling his eyes fondly. "So, are we flooing Ron when we get back to the house?" he asked, switching topics.

Hermione grimaced. "Actually, I'd like to talk to you alone."

"Should I be frightened or scintillated?" Harry said teasingly.

"Seriously Harry. I want you to keep your ears open about some vampire disappearances. See if you can get me some names. Case files if you can, if they've even bothered to open a case."

Harry glanced around the empty atrium. "Before you get me into something illegal, let's talk about it somewhere other than the Ministry," he muttered. He didn't know where they'd gotten the idea that Hermione was the most rule-abiding of the three of them all those years ago. They must have been mental.

So Hermione kept her silence until they'd apparated to the front door of Grimmauld Place, because Harry liked the privacy of not having a Floo connection, thank you very much. Sliding her cloak off her shoulders and hanging it on the wall, then giving his the same treatment, he turned to his best friend. "Alright," he asked, "what's this about?"

He listened first with skepticism and then horror as she sketched out the details of the disappearances. "Merlin, Hermione," he said, "You can't just wander parts of the city as you please."

"Oh?" she inquired acidly. He absently noted they still hadn't moved out of the entry. Any moment now and that old hag was going to start shouting. "And why can't I?"

"Because it's just not a good idea," Harry replied, avoiding the fact that it was more dangerous for a witch to be about after dark than a wizard. If he ever had any spare time, he'd look up the statistics. That at least might curb some of Hermione's proclivities. She might be the bloody brightest witch of her generation, but sometimes her much-vaunted logic seemed a little lacking when she got excited. "You could have at least asked me to come along," he said with exasperation.

"Lloyd was with me," she said defensively, but she didn't meet his eyes.

"Lloyd looks like a pixie could snap him in two," Harry said.

"Lloyd is a vampire," Hermione defended.

That surprised him a bit, but he still rolled his eyes. "It doesn't matter what he is," he informed her, "unless he looks like he can take on a dragon and come out laughing from twenty paces, he isn't going to stop people from coming at you."

"See, this is why I wasn't going to tell you," Hermione pointed out reasonably. "And I thought you might be busy."

Harry opened his mouth to retort when Kreacher's voice interrupted them, "Is Master Harry and Miss Hermione going to come in? Kreacher has finished preparing dinner."

"Thanks, Kreacher," Harry said offhandedly, Hermione echoing his sentiment. Giving her a stern look that was wasted, he allowed her to proceed him into the dining room. But once they were seated, he tried to resume the conversation. "What did Lloyd think of you going into that part of the city?"

"What is with all you bloody men?" Hermione bit out exasperatedly. "We're not going to talk about this any more."

Harry stared hard at the witch who was now studiously ignoring him. He had the feeling she'd get her way in the end, but he wasn't going to give up. But a strategic retreat was in order for now. "Alright," he agreed, "we won't talk about it. So, how's it going with Ron?"

The scathing look she gave him was answer enough.

-X-X-X-

_Hermione, I'm never going to be too busy to stop my friend from getting attacked in some Merlin-forsaken alley. _Those had been Harry's parting words as she'd left Grimmauld Place. But the warmth inspired by her visit with her friend hadn't survived the morning.

"It's called precedence," Parfit informed her in her grating, high-pitched voice, "You do like being able to work, don't you? Then you shouldn't complain when they're too busy with the Muggleborn Acts to look over whatever drivel you've drafted."

Hermione clenched her jaw. She _knew_ why Kingsley was insisting on such strict executive oversight, but it was slowing the bureaucratic gears to a near halt. "But it's very important," she said grimly, "to assure that in the post-war atmosphere laws about the acceptable treatment of house elves are in place _before_ we place the displaced ones with new families." Merlin, she hated talking about them like that, like they were stray dogs. But even dogs had more protections on them than the elves, in the Muggle world at least.

"They've done quite well for hundreds of years on their own," her own boss, Nigel Brimble, said in a conciliatory voice. "And we'll make sure they go to good families, so there shouldn't be anything to worry about."

Hermione's fists clenched. History had proven that trusting only to man's conscience resulted only in chaos—law was needed, in order to regulate behavior and punishment. She didn't doubt that they'd manage to get some to families that would treat them at least decently, but some wasn't all, and she'd never been a girl who liked trusting things to chance. "At least make the application process more stringent," Hermione said. "Or allow us to conduct investigations into the families."

"We just don't have the manpower for that kind of thing," Brimble said apologetically. "What with all the placement we'll have to do. Most of them are tied to the estates and will go to blood relatives, but we'll have to check the Hall of Records to determine who inherits and make sure the bonds are working correctly." He shook his head and sighed. "We just can't do it. And if we make the application process more stringent, who knows how long the process will drag on for? Can't be done."

Yes, there were entire days when Hermione wished very fervently for competent coworkers. Unfortunately, she was certain that might be a greater magic than even Merlin was capable of.

"However, I'm glad you came in," Brimble said and her attention was caught by his tone of voice. For all that she didn't believe in Divination, she had an unsettling feeling that her premonition of trouble ahead would be accurate. "As you know, our division of the department deals with three main categories of beings: the werewolves, the goblins, and the house elves. Any other beings having troubles can of course come to the department, but they don't usually appear in such significant numbers as to have an entire subdivision devoted to their administration. What we usually do is assign those showing a particular knack for interactions with them to that particular species."

He paused for a moment as he coughed, then forged on, "And it's come to my attention that you've managed to extent a hand, as it were, to the vampires."

"Sir?" Hermione questioned, shutting her expression down tight as she wondered if tales of her nighttime trip had somehow been spread.

"Your assistant, of course," Brimble explained. "Marvelous publicity, that. I really do admire your ability to work with the creature. He seems most biddable."

And now everything she'd ever learned of Occlumancy came into play. _Stop talking about him like he's an animal!_ she shrieked inside her head. _Lloyd is a person, not a creature, and he's a damn sight better person than either of you!_ But she didn't say it aloud, because getting herself fired here would mean she could change nothing.

"Lloyd is an excellent assistant," she said coolly.

Brimble smiled patronizingly at her. "I'm sure he is. But it also makes you uniquely qualified within this department. I know your primary interest until now has been house elves, but I'd like you to focus your efforts exclusively on the vampires from now on. You'll be happy to know that you'll also be receiving a pay raise for this. We expect many good things from you in the future."

Hermione froze. It was as useless an appointment as being sent to the Goblin Liaison Office. The vampires had always dealt with their own problems. It was one of the reasons that their society was so opaque, as they'd never resorted to dealing with outsiders. She could barely force the words through her lips. "Thank you, sir. Will that be all?"

"That's all. Oh, and you can give your house elf files to Evelyn, she'll take care of them."

Numbly, like she was walking to her own execution, Hermione walked the familiar path back to her office.

"Is something wrong?" Lloyd asked, surging to his feet as she entered, closing the door carefully behind her. Her hand trembled as she case a muffling spell.

"Those utter bastards!" she exclaimed.

"What's happened?" Lloyd repeated.

"I'm the official vampire liaison now," she said bitterly.

She didn't have to say anymore. Lloyd immediately understood that it was an empty position. "It is very difficult, to seek change from the very people who benefit from the current stagnation of the Wizarding world," he said carefully after a moment. "It would be even more extraordinary to expect that change to come from their initiative."

"But it's _wrong_," she said. "You should have heard the way they were talking about-," and she cut herself off.

But Lloyd, like every good assistant, was perceptive. "Did they say something about me? There is no need for you to take offence on my account."

"But someone should," Hermione insisted.

"I will believe many strange things of the Muggle world, but surely you do not expect me to believe that there isn't also prejudice there?"  
"It exists," Hermione admitted, "there's genocide and war, but there's also change. It's just as you said—the Wizarding world is a stagnant pool, build around a set of families that have interbred for generations. Magic itself tries to solve the problem by manifesting itself in new blood, and that's were Muggleborns come from, but they won't allow the new water to flow in, strengthening and purifying the whole. With the prejudice as it is, do you know the statistics for Muggleborn marriages? 76 percent," and she emphasized the figure, "marry other Muggleborns. Only 22 percent marry into Wizarding families or marry halfbloods. Astonishingly, Muggleborns have the lowest rate of marrying back into the Muggle population—that's the last 2 percent. The instinct to bind ourselves to the magical world is there, but it can't be exercised."

"If they really wanted to be critical," she said bitterly, "it's the halfbloods that are the problem. Full Wizarding and Muggle marriages tend to result in violently and mentally unstable offspring."

"Well, perhaps you can use that as your rallying point when you become the next Dark Lord," Lloyd pointed out and she knew he was trying to stop her spiral of frustration, but he didn't quite do lightheartedness all that well yet.

Her laugh nearly caught in her throat as she tried to swallow down her tears, but she managed. "Yes, well, at the rate I'm going, the Wizarding world can rest assured of safety for many years to come. I just don't understand it," she complained. "They see you and talk to you every day, but it's as if they're afraid of you."

"They are afraid of me," Lloyd said. "But more than that, I think they fear how you treat me as if I was your equal."

"You are my equal," Hermione pointed out. "Maybe you can't use magic, but in every way that really matters, the differences between us aren't even worth mentioning."

That made a small smile tug at Lloyd's lips. "I am glad you think so. The other problem is that now that I'm Sireless, I've remained Masterless. To those wizards out there, I represent an uncontrollable creature let off its leash."

"How many times are you going to make me say that's not true?" Hermione asked irritably.

"In a world of magic, perception creates reality," Lloyd said softly. "It would be easier on everyone, Miss Granger, if you would let me call you Mistress."

Hermione snorted. "When have I ever chosen the easy way? Every person has the right to belong to themselves."

"Then if you will not be my Mistress in truth, let us at least give them the illusion of it. Not only will it likely soothe the fears of your coworkers, but it will give you a better position from which to negotiate with other vampires. I would never have suggested it if we continued to do general work for the department, but I, at least, refuse to take less than every advantage offered when dealing with others of my kind. Desperation has taught us ruthlessness. And," he said with that small smile, "I think I would have difficulty finding another boss if I let you disappear."

"And what would this illusion entail?" Hermione asked suspiciously. Not that she didn't trust Lloyd himself, but she was unfamiliar with vampire customs.

"Nothing so very drastic as you seem to be thinking," he answered. "I address you as my mistress and show you greater deference. That is all."

"I don't like it," she responded immediately.

"If you want to change this world, you must sometimes play by its rules, until you understand those rules well enough to break them," Lloyd reminded her gently.

"But Lloyd, you shouldn't have to."

"That's a weak argument, and you know it, Miss Granger." Yes, she knew. No one _should_ starve in this city of plenty, but they did. No one _should_ die of exposure in this city of millions of houses, but they did. No one _should_ fear for their lives in this society of wonder, but they did.

"I still don't have to like it."

"That is your prerogative, Mistress," and there was a teasing light in his eye as he said the words.

Something in her relaxed at the sight. So long as she and he understood their charade, it would be all right. She didn't even have to change her behavior towards him at all.

Lloyd's head turned sharply towards the door and Hermione canceled the muffling spell. A moment later, a knock came. "Miss Granger, are you in?" The voice belonged to the witch who manned the front desk, whose name she usually forgot. But she could tell even through the door that the woman was nervous.

"Yes, did you need something?"

"There's a visitor here for you."

She exchanged a glance with Lloyd, then they both stepped away from the door, Lloyd taking a seat behind his desk in an instant. Hermione called out, "Send them in."

When the door opened, she could hardly have been more surprised if Voldemort himself had walked through.

"It's a pleasure to see you again, Miss Granger."  
"Hello, Mr. Bone."

A/N: Yes, despise me for the cliffhanger I now leave you with.


	4. The War Among the Proletariat

Disclaimer: No copyright infringement is intended by this story, nor do I make profit by it.

A/N: When so much of Harry Potter takes place in remote wizarding villages and Hogwarts, it's very strange how this has been a very urban tale thus far.

Cry Out, Curlew

-Chapter Four-

The War Among the Proletariat

_When you are intent on 'saving' us, remember not to destroy 'us' by turning us into you. _

_Abram Bone, Sire_

Lloyd kept so close to her elbow it was difficult to walk without touching him. But Hermione could understand his unease, for Bone had led them down a series of increasing narrow alleys. At last he stopped before a battered door that at one time might have been painted a cheerful red, but now looked as if someone had applied a coat of rust to it.

Abram Bone glanced back at them then. "This is our destination."

Lloyd slipped deftly in front of her, so that once again his body was between her and the Sire, though the older vampire had offered them no hostility. "A promise of safe passage before the Mistress enters," Lloyd demanded.

"Cheeky little brat, aren't you?" Bone chuckled humorlessly. "Just because a homeless pup is taken in does not give it the right to challenge a wolf."

Hermione surreptitiously slid her wand into her hand as Lloyd stood his ground, though she could see from this distance how he trembled, hands fisting closed and then open.

"Your new _Mistress,_" Bone sneered, "will be in no danger of dying beyond this door."

Hermione would have moved forward at that statement, but Lloyd's arm was suddenly extended in front of her.

"No harm," he emphasized.

Bone's old eyes, which were almost colorless, narrowed at Lloyd's presumption. Even Hermione was a little surprised. "Not a drop of your witch's precious blood will be shed," the Sire promised at last. "She is here today only to bear witness."

Gently taking hold of Lloyd's arm and tugging it out of her way, Hermione asked, "Bear witness to what, Mr. Bone?"

"Justice," the older vampire hissed. With that single word, he turned back to the door, which seemed to open of its own accord. Lloyd couldn't seem to decided whether it would be better to follow her through the door or lead the way, but in the end Hermione entered first, staunchly marching into the darkness.

Low, uncertain light pervaded the space, which seemed to consist of a warren of tiny rooms, like a tenement house. Through the narrow spaces that served as doors, she could see shabbily clad people huddling in the deepest shadows, eyes reflecting light as they peered at her. They were not hostile, but they neither were they welcoming. Like wary animals, she thought with a pang. Swallowing down a certain amount of unease, she attempted not to stare.

Bone led them through the rooms until they came to a staircase, which they then climbed. The room that it deposited them in was perhaps three times as large as any of the ones below had been, but it was still populated by battered furniture that had seen many, many better days. The same might have been said for the inhabitants of the room.

From the way Lloyd froze on the landing, Hermione assumed that all of the vampires assembled on this level were Masters or higher. There were six of them, of varying ages and sexes, their manner of dress varying wildly. One man was wearing what looked to be a threadbare frockcoat that at one time must have been truly magnificent if its worn brocade was anything to judge by. A girl who looked like she was Hermione's age had made her tattered and torn clothing into a fashion statement that the Weird Sisters would be envious of, cheap jewelry glistening in her brows and ears, weighing down her narrow wrists.

With his white dress shirt and old-fashioned braces, Abram Bone was positively normative in comparison, but the others all nodded deferentially to him before turning their flat gazes to her.

"This is the witch?" A stout Irishwoman asked, dressed in a respectable dull green suit.

"Yes," Bone replied. "You are in the august presence of the very Hermione Granger who helped to throw down the Dark Lord."

The Irishwoman did not look impressed and the pierced girl sneered, "Who's the leech?"

"This is Alastair Lloyd, one of the few surviving progeny of Christian Fell."

If anything, the Irishwoman looked even less impressed with Lloyd. "He doesn't look it."

"What's he doing with the witch?" the man with the frockcoat asked.

"He claims her as his Mistress," Bone said offhandedly. That brought about a hum of consternation from the vampires, but it soon died out as Bone spoke again. "He has insisted on staying by her side."

Hermione stood uncomfortably under the measuring glances of the clutch. "It's a pleasure to meet all of you, but why am I here?"

"Oh, she's polite too," one of the silent observers said, emerging from his shadowed corner to reveal what had once been an incredibly handsome man with dark hair and eyes the sharp blue of spring, but a long and deep scar marred his face, one of those eyes the milky white of a blind man.

"Let's finish this, so she'll leave my nest," the teen vampire huffed.

"And we are suitably grateful, Harper, for the use of it," Abram replied. "Shall we bring our final guest up?"

At his words, two vampires came from below, holding between them a man who was struggling frantically. Tears leaked from his eyes as he was shoved roughly to his knees, one vampire's hold on his hair forcing him to bow his head.

"You wished to be included, should we discover who was responsible for the disappearances among us," Bone explained. "This man is one of them."

Hermione was immediately wary. "You have proof?"

"One of mine was witness to an abduction. This man's hood fell back in the process. He was caught entering Quillan's territory," the scarred vampire indicated the Irishwoman.

"Do we need to produce Gerard's child for you, or will you be satisfied with our testimony?" the man in the frockcoat asked acidly.

Hermione, who had seen how accurately the senses of a vampire could pinpoint an individual these past few weeks, shook her head. "No. Will you turn him over to the Ministry?"

"So that they may release him back into our midst with their congratulations?" Gerard hissed.

"We will not release him, Ms. Granger," Abram Bone said evenly. "Instead, we will have him lead us to the rest of his comrades."

Looking down at the man who was even now glowering at the vampires with nearly tangible hatred in his eyes, she hesitated to ask how they would secure his cooperation. She was not left to wonder long.

Harper knelt in front of the man, almost close enough to kiss. Lloyd, who'd been hovering nervously in the fringes of the room, had finally gravitated back to Hermione's side. In a low voice, he explained, "Of all the Sires of greater London, Harper is the one whose children can least disobey her."

"So she'll turn him?" her remark was high-pitched, which drew Gerard's attention.

"Of course. He can replace the ones he killed. Is that not a kind of justice?" the Sire demanded.

Hermione bit down on her lip. This was all happening so fast. She wanted to be able to deliberate on the matter, weigh the consequences of each actions, but she could already tell that no one in this room would support her opinion. And, really, what other option could she offer them?

Vampire testimony wasn't accepted in the Wizengamot or the lesser courts, because truth serums didn't affect them and they had the same resistance to truth spells that they had to most magic. So their witness would be dismissed out of hand, no matter that he would be far more accurate than a witch or wizard.

Submitting a complaint to her department would be met with a recommendation to take the case to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, who, if they couldn't find tangible evidence, would dismiss the case entirely.

_Were there days like this for everyone? _she wondered wildly, where it seemed like Fortuna herself was set against her. But Hermione refused to buckle under the strain. Instead, she straightened, smoothing down her robes. Stepping forward into the circle, Gerard eyed her suspiciously.

"What are you doing, witch?" The way he said it, the last word could have started with a different letter entirely and still carried the same scorn.

"I'm witnessing," Hermione answered him prissily. "You brought me here for a reason. If you want the illusion of Ministry approval, I'm here to provide it. Serial murder is a capital crime." And what they were going to do with him could be no worse than spending the rest of his life in Azkaban. "Well?" she demanded shrilly when no one moved, betraying her nervousness.

Abram Bone chuckled darkly. "You're a very interesting creature, Hermione Granger. Harper, stop with your theatrics."

The girl did as she was told, leaning forward to latch onto the man's throat with long, narrow fangs. It was a perfunctory bite, lingering just long enough to draw the required measure of blood, then one of the vampires who had held the struggling man forced his jaw open with force that was almost painful to watch.

"Please," the man begged as soon as his gag was removed, "Please save me!"

Instead of making her feel pity, the sight actually turned Hermione against him even before his next words, distorted, were uttered. "Save me! They're just monsters!"

"I'm afraid, sir," Hermione said coldly, "that I cannot be of aid to you. It would seem you have already been given due process?" She left it an open-ended, pointed question directed at the vampires.

Quillan answered her. "He was caught in my territory. When I confronted him, he confessed." She sneered down at the wizard. "He didna seem to understand that confronting a Sire alone is a different beast altogether from attacking a Master while in a coven."

"How did you know it was him to begin with?" Hermione asked. "From the description?" Nothing in the wizard's appearance made him particularly memorable to Hermione's eyes. He was towheaded, with watery blue eyes, which might have described any number of the millions who drifted through London daily.

"His heart has a defect," Quillian explained irritably. "He has never had it treated, because it is not severe, but it is distinctive to a vampire's hearing."

"I see," Hermione said evenly, filing that away for further inspection when she was not surrounded by vampires impatient to carry out their punishment. "You did bring in Gerard's witness for a positive identification?"

"Do you think we'd be so foolish as to risk the Ministry's anger for a wizard whose identity we were uncertain of?" Gerard said with scorn.

"Then, I really cannot help you," Hermione said to the man.

His face screwed up in rage and he might have leapt at her, but for the vampires that kept him on his knees. "You traitor!" he howled, ripping his face violently from the shorter one's hold. "You filthy mudblood! You-"

Hermione's mouth firmed into a single displeased line as they forced his jaw open again. There was clear distaste on Harper's pretty features as she allowed her blood to drip into his open mouth. "Take him away," she ordered, after some quota had been reached. In contrast to his violent struggles as he'd entered, the man who had been drug away was nearly comatose. "It will take three days to complete the transformation. Are you going to bring Miss Ministry again?" she asked with a scowl toward Abram Bone.

"Perhaps. If Miss Granger will deign to accompany me again."

It was Hermione's turn to scowl. "Did you discover why they were taking them?"

"Do they need an excuse?" Harper countered.

"No," Hermione answered, but most of her young life had been delineated by far-reaching plots and she wasn't quite ready to cede that paranoia yet. "But you might ask."

Harper scoffed, but she looked thoughtful, so Hermione allowed herself to hope. She felt eyes at her back as Bone escorted them out. "I imagine your servant will be able to escort you from here. You will excuse Harper. She is young and a colonial. She cannot help her rudeness." With that dismissal, Bone turned and retreated into the house.

Hermione cleared her throat. "So those were Sires."

Lloyd made a pained noise. "Miss Granger, one day you will be the death of both of us."

Hermione began walking out of the labyrinth they'd been led into. "I am curious. When they say territory, how much does each of them claim?"

Lloyd fell into step behind her. "The territories are currently in flux because of the war. They are cooperating in this matter, but each of them is hoping to claim more land."

"How does that work, exactly?" Hermione queried.

"Presently, they measure it by the Underground."

"The Underground?"

"The Tube. A Sire claims all the stops along a particular line as his own, which is why I referred to them as the Sires of greater London. The outskirts have their own methods of determining territory. Of course, usually a Sire limits his activities to the neighborhood his nest is in and Masters hold more direct influence within their own sphere of power."

Hermione was still trying to wrap her mind around the idea of vampiric territories created using Tube lines. Among the wizards, you would be lucky to find one in ten who had even the faintest idea what the London Underground even was, outside of the most notorious magic black market in England. But once she had eased herself in, she felt comfortable enough to ask, "Why not use the zones instead?"

Lloyd shrugged. "Perhaps because it is the predator's instinct to follow the movement of its prey," he suggested after a moment.

Hermione hummed her understanding. "Then, there must have been," she did a quick calculation, "at least seven more Sires who died during the war?"

"Yes," Lloyd confirmed.

"What happens when the lines overlap?" Hermione pressed, calling to mind a mental map of the Underground. For at least part of the route, the Circle, Hammersmith & City, and Metropolitan lines overlapped, as did the Circle and District lines.

"They come to an understanding. We are not barbarians," Lloyd replied rather coolly, but Hermione was still caught up in the delight of new information.

"What area is Abram Bone in charge of?"

"His territory lies along the District line. It was simply poor luck we met him the other day. He generally lives-," but Lloyd censored himself.

"Lives?" Hermione prompted.

"I don't think it would be wise to share the location of his nest with you, Miss Granger."

Hermione huffed, but without any rancor. Linking her arm with Lloyd's, she Apparated them both to the Phial & Philter. When there, Hermione nibbled distractedly upon a bit of slightly stale toast while Lloyd ate. Drank. Whatever verb might be applied to the action of taking liquid sustenance.

"You really should take the time to go through your inventory," Lloyd scolded her.

"But I don't have _time_," Hermione protested.

"Being the vampire liaison will hardly a paperwork intensive position," Lloyd observed. "I might, for the first time since I went to work for you, be able to keep something approximating normal hours. At times I begin to wonder if you sleep."

"I sleep," Hermione defended herself. As little as possible, admittedly. Her normal routine was to work or clean until she was exhausted, then collapse into bed, because then the nightmares were bearable. Hermione had not enjoyed her stay at Malfoy Manor in person, so she felt little enough need to relive it in vivid detail every night. And when her dreams didn't take her there, she was left with the days after Ron's abandonment, confronting the Umbridge woman at the ministry, or the battle for Hogwarts itself.

Hermione had her suspicions that Harry suffered from the same endless round of nightmares, but they hadn't spoken of it. She was still rather anxious about his moving into Grimmauld Place by himself, but she hardly had room to speak, except that her home, at least, didn't have distressing memories associated with it.

Lloyd refrained from further comment, so she conceded, "I probably should go through the inventory."

His small, pleased smile made her feel rather warm, because Lloyd had once smiled so rarely.

"I never considered being a shopkeeper," Hermione confided brightly.

"What did you want to do?" Lloyd asked politely.

"I suppose it doesn't really matter what I wanted when I was in primary, but when I came to Hogwarts, I thought I might like a job where the Ministry paid me to learn things about magic."

"An Unspeakable?"

"Yes, but I didn't know they were called that then. I just thought it would be the nearest thing to being a Muggle scientist. I liked physics a great deal before I found out I was a witch," she said, her voice as warm as if she spoke of an old friend, "but of course, physics and magic are opposite ends of a spectrum."

"What made you change your mind?" he asked with genuine interest now.

Hermione flushed. "House elves, really. I didn't know that Hogwarts kept them and when I found out, I thought I would free them. I had all these grandiose plans," she waved her hands to indicate the extent of those plans.

"House elves need to be in service," Lloyd said cautiously, as if he expected her to snap at him for voicing an opinion, which was ridiculous, because he should have known better by now.

"I know that now, but at the time how was I to know that the source of their magic is linked to being useful to a house?" Hermione asked in exasperation. "It's not like Hogwarts offered an introduction to wizarding culture. Which would have been useful. It was like being stranded in a foreign country without being able to speak a word of the language."

"You seem to have flourished." Hermione smiled at the compliment.

"I read a bit," Hermione admitted. "But really, how many eleven year olds are going to have a casual interest in etiquette manuals? And the behavior is so engrained in the old families, it's only old aunties with too much time on their hands who write them, then the publishers only make a limited number of copies and they're devilishly hard to get your hands on."

Realizing she'd been rambling, Hermione stopped her rant abruptly. "I'm sorry. There are just so many things I find frustrating about the wizarding world."

Lloyd nodded. She felt suddenly awkward, complaining to a vampire. But he seemed not to hold it against her. "I wonder," he ventured after a moment, "if you might be willing to do me a favor."

"Why wouldn't I?" Hermione replied. "After all, you've spent so much time trailing after me lately that you should really be getting time-and-a-half pay."

"Well, if possible, there is...," Hermione watched patiently as Lloyd carefully arranged his words. "Blood," he said at last. "You found a supplier who can sell it to you in volume, but it loses its nutritional value within days, even with stasis spells. It seems such a waste, because it's more than I need. So, would it be alright if I was to distribute it to certain interested parties? They would pay, of course," he hurried to reassure her.

Hermione blinked. "Well, I don't see why not," she said slowly. "In fact, I'll see about taking out a Muggle business license. Then the Ministry won't be able to say anything. They have no authority to interfere with Muggle licensing, but as I'm a witch, it doesn't violate the International Statute of Secrecy."

"Thank you, Miss Granger," Lloyd said warmly.

She smiled at him. "I'm so familiar with paperwork now it shouldn't take long."

And it didn't, or at least no longer than it usually took to obtain a license to operate a restaurant in London. One of her "customers" had volunteered his house to be the physical space for the health inspector's approval and Hermione had an entertaining afternoon of showing off her transfiguration skills as she turned the ground-floor studio into a small cafe. _Sanguine _was the tongue-in-cheek name she'd chosen for her business and that was how Hermione found herself selling vampires blood, which made more business sense than selling ice to Eskimos, but was just as surreal.

The profit she made from it was just enough to cover the rent on an actual pub, because not all vampires kept such diurnal hours and Hermione needed to sleep occasionally. Sanguine became the responsibility of two enterprising vampires of indeterminate age who seemed quite excited about the pittance of a salary they received.

By the time Hermione had acquired Sanguine there was already a committed clientele, so most of the battered tables that had come with the property had at least one occupant. Hermione, who'd just renewed the Muggle-repelling charms (because the menu above the bar with its short list of cow, sheep, or pig would raise questions by itself), sat at the bar and ignored how viscous most of the liquid served here was. 

Kieve, one of her two bartenders, had taken pity on her and brewed a perfectly normal pot of tea, which was a more popular drink here than Hermione had thought it would be. She hadn't realized how difficult it would be for vampires to simply find a place to socialize, but with the post-war fear still strong, such gatherings could provoke wizards who weren't known for being even-headed in the first place.

No alcohol was served at Sanguine, because Hermione thought that it might be tempting Fortuna to get a liquor license, but vampires seemed to be in general a very quiet kind of crowd. Not all were as solemn as Lloyd, but many shared the pinched, worried look he'd worn permanently when he'd first come to the Ministry.

"Need anything else, boss?" Kieve asked as he dried freshly washed glasses behind the scarred length of the oak bar. In order to keep the overhead low, Sanguine was located in one of the shabbier sections of unplottable London, but no one complained and Hermione insisted on a clean bar, so no matter how old the furniture was, Kieve and Willa kept it burnished to a shine.

Kieve, who looked like he'd come from a rougher section of the city even before he'd become a vampire. He was a big man, his dark hair cut short, which exposed a complex knotwork tatto that curled down from his right temple. Willa, short for Wilhelmina, was a dark, quiet woman who had been introduced to Hermione by Lloyd. Kieve seemed to get a kick out of calling her "boss," but Willa, when she spoke to her directly, tended to call her fräulein and avoid eye contact. From what she understood, Willa had come to London as an unwitting German tourist during the war and had never made it back to Germany.

The vampire abductions had continued, even though it was now almost two months after she'd witnessed the transformation of that wizard whose name she'd never learned. Harry had done a little digging on her behalf, but after a few weeks, she'd let that avenue of investigation rest because as a trainee there was only so much information that Harry legally had access to. She hadn't seen any of her school friends since a dinner at the Burrow two weeks ago that had still been stiffly awkward. After that first unexpected visit, Abram Bone had yet to darken her door again, so Hermione had been reduced to micro-tidying her office and using Ministry time to conduct her personal business.

For now that consisted of managing Sanguine, which consisted mostly of doing not much of anything as the vampires took care of picking up fresh shipments of blood daily, served before refrigeration if they could manage it. Hermione was occasionally asked to sign off on things for the business end, but glancing over the accounts that Willa painstakingly kept took only a moment.

So Hermione brought in books and studied, drafted proposals that would never see the light of day, and organized the records room. She left, for the first time in her short career, promptly at the end of the working day and cleaning and inventoried her potions shop. All in all, she was more of a success as an entrepreneur, she thought dryly, than she was as a legislator. And as neither the Phial & Philter nor Sanguine actually turned a profit, that was a sad comment on how much she'd struggled within the Ministry.

"No, thanks," she said abruptly when she realized she'd been letting her thoughts wander without giving Kieve an answer, but he didn't look put out.

"Tired?" he asked sympathetically.

"Frustrated," she growled into the crook of her arm as she put her head on the counter. "Bloody Ministry."

She heard a toast to that from a corner and she smiled faintly as she dug her hand into her mane of frizzy curls. By this time in the evening, her hair was generally unmanageable. She heard the door open, but took no notice of it until Kieve froze, watching warily the person who'd entered.

Hermione raised her head and turned, recognizing the figure that sauntered in immediately.

"Harper, what a surprise to see you again," Hermione greeted pleasantly.

The Sire scowled at her, then ignored her in favor of looking over the establishment. Which, even Hermione would admit, was humble to the point of being stark. "So, you're a blood dealer now, Miss Ministry?"

Hermione struggled to keep her smile, trying furiously to divine what a Sire like Harper was doing here. Wishing she'd thought to bring Lloyd, who could always be depended on for information. "I wouldn't call it that," she said softly. "I'm just...helping."

Harper snorted. "Helping. Like a witch like you would bother. I was surprised that I haven't seen a write-up in the papers yet. 'War Heroine Turns Philanthropist' or some crap like that."

"Harper, why are you here?" Hermione demanded directly, since soft misdirection hadn't worked.

"Bone sent me," the girl said with obvious displeasure. "Where's your leech?"

Hermione shrugged. "It's after hours. What Lloyd does in his time is his business. Now, what does Mr. Bone want with me?"

"He didn't say."

"And you actually came anyway?" Hermione asked with surprise.

"Bone is older than sin," Harper mumbled spitefully. "I'd swear he was here before the city was. No one lives that long, not even vampires. So we all do what Bone says, mostly."

"Really?" Thinking back to that clutch, Hermione didn't see any of them taking orders easily. Even if Abram Bone was old.

"Well," Harper admitted with a shrug, "Bone doesn't do much except make sure we all get along and don't kill each other for territory. Beyond that, he really doesn't give a damn. Except, this time, he's the one telling us we can't act against the wizards until 'our position improves'," she mocked.

Hermione frowned as she readjusted, for the third time, her idea of who and what Abram Bone was. "Kieve, I'll be going now," she said, laying down the money for her tea with a generous tip.

"Sure thing, boss," he said with a nervous glance at Harper, as if the petite girl was about to vault the bar and tear his throat out. Which, Hermione supposed, she might be capable of.

Hermione waved to Willa as she went out, but the reserved woman was too busy watching the receding back of the Sire to pay her any mind.

"You've collected a lot of strays in there," Harper commented as they walked. She shot the witch an embarrassed glance. "It's actually a pretty good idea. But that doesn't mean I don't think you're not getting something out of it," she snapped with extra ferocity, as if that might make up for the compliment.

"I get the satisfaction of knowing that I'm helping someone."

"So, how's it work?"

Hermione explained the set-up to the girl as they walked, from how they'd used the loopholes in the Ministry laws to make it legal, to the bartenders and the vampires they'd been playfully calling "bloodrunners" who picked up the blood at the slaughterhouse and delivered it to the bar. "We charge as close to cost as possible, which, because we buy in volume, isn't expensive. The profits go to paying for the license, rent on the pub, and paying the bartenders and the runners. We keep two sets of books, one for us, one for taxes. The one for taxes says that our menu runs toward coffee and cheap Scottish dishes."

"The man at the slaughterhouse isn't suspicious?"

"Well, I have the restaurant excuse, but I've also told him my family has a big farm."

Harper looked blank. "What does that have to do with blood?"

"Bloodmeal. You can use it as a fertilizer."

The girl's nose wrinkled up. "That's so gross. And such a waste," she said in reflection.

Hermione let that pass without comment.

"Here we are," Harper announced suddenly.

Hermione stopped, taking in her surroundings, from the fashionable district of Mayfair across the street to Buckingham Palace itself across the expanse of trees. "The Green Park?"

"This is where Bone said to take you, because the Muggle's Palace has always been neutral ground. I'm off now, Miss Ministry." And she was, with only the damp chill of night left behind.

From behind one of the trees, Abram Bone appeared. "Hermione Granger," he greeted her.

"Mr. Bone."

"I have waited, to see what you would do," Bone said, strangely colorless eyes taking on the color of the sunset as the city began to quietly fall into darkness.

"And?" Hermione asked, resisting the urge to reach for her wand.

"You have exceeded my expectations. Perhaps that child of Fell's chose more wisely than he knew. Or more foolishly. Tell me, Hermione Granger, what are your intentions concerning vampires?"

"I just want to help," Hermione affirmed.

"As I have told you before, incautious help is unwelcome and intrusive. Vampires must remain a controlled population. If you make it too easy to live in this world, our numbers will increase and not all those who become vampires will know caution."

Hermione's hands went to her hips, in the manner of Molly Weasely. "Well, that's the business of the Sires, isn't it, to make sure that your people don't go turning people willy-nilly. _My_ job is to ensure that there is opportunity out there for those that are vampires to do something other than ferment rebellion."

Abram Bone laughed. "Yes, I suppose that is the job of the Sires. But if you truly want to provide us opportunity, repeal that laws that forbid vampires from taking jobs among the Muggle population. Do that, and I will personally guarantee that will prevent any untoward incidents from happening."

"Is that why...?" Hermione asked.

"You thought it our own prejudice? Among those that were once wizards, there are those who would sooner starve themselves into the grave than work among those who don't have the gift of magic, but not all of us were once wizards. The laws are almost three hundred years old now, that is why you haven't read of them."

"Three hundred years?" Hermione repeated numbly. It wasn't quite to the scale of amending the laws governing house elves, but it was still daunting.

"Sanguine. It was an excellent idea, but for now there are still many who cannot afford it. Secure the jobs and open them throughout the city. If they have a ready alternative, altercations with Muggles will drop out of existence."

Hermione worried her lower lip. "Alright. Alight," she said with more conviction. "I'll change it."

"When I hear of the change, I will send Gerard Revelin to you. He will act as your intermediary."

"Why can't Lloyd?" Hermione heard herself ask before she thought better of it.

Yellowed skin crinkled as Abram Bone smiled. "Unless you are willing to truly subjugate him, Alastair Lloyd is only a commonplace vampire. My kind do not always respect a relationship formed by an exchange of money, when so much of what we are depends upon obedience and blood. Gerard Revelin is a Sire, so it is their nature to respect his word. You have seen only the fringes, the Masterless and the Sireless. The truly desperate. They are, without the will of their makers, easily swayed. This will not be so with all the vampires you will encounter. Use him well."

A/N: If you are British or live in London, you may feel free to be disgusted by my grasp of your Tube system. Everyone else will please carry on as if what I've written makes perfect sense_._

And, because I forgot to include an opening quote for chapter three, here's a preview from a future chapter:

_Assimilation, it is the bigger fish eating the smaller one and calling them one creature._

Yves Bastien, Veela

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	5. The Didactic War Against the Wizengamot

Disclaimer: If I owned even fringe rights to Harry Potter, I would not be working my current job.

Cry Out, Curlew

-Chapter Five-

The Didactic War Against the Wizengamot

Two months and approximately one thousand, two hundred and thirty-two hours of legal research later, the first of the Granger Acts was passed by a specially assembled body of the Wizengamot. Kingsley had told her the session would be her best opportunity to pass the bill and he'd tacked it on last-minute to the docket so as best to catch her opponents unprepared. Though she'd felt almost as guilty as if she was arranging something far more nefarious, she'd prepared almost more thoroughly than she'd packed her bag for the Horcrux hunt. At that point operating only on will and tea so strong as to almost be Turkish, Hermione had not wasted precious energy arguing with the Minister.

She thought he had hoped to pork barrel the new legislation through with the rather tedious matters on the docket, but he should have had more faith in his politicians.

They argued against it. Virulently. But Hermione had been in some luck. Because the other matters truly were tedious, the speaker of the session had opened the floor with the injunction that unless there was a substantial and substantiated objection, all the bills were to be passed, most of them simple renewal of budget related items like the quill and parchment funds for the various departments. And though only the thirteen members of the Domestic Economic Committee (which generally handled things too banal for the Economic Committee proper to worry their grey heads over) would vote on it, it was accepted as provisionally binding, the Wizengamot having voted to invest each of the sub-committees with the power to deal with the hundreds of laws necessary to invalidate the laws passed by the Thicknesse administration, aside from the normal functions of the M.O.M.'s legislative and high judicial body.

Thicknesse's Thickness, as the collective group of generally anti-anything-that-couldn't-trace-it's-magical-lineage-unbroken-and-unsullied-for-seven-generations laws were now known, couldn't simply be repealed a masse, so each individual piece of legislation had to be called before the Wizengamot, debated upon, and then a vote had to be cast. Some of the laws, because of ancient legislative tradition, required the unanimous vote of the fully assembled Wizengamot to overturn, something that canny politicians were milking by the simple measure of not showing up for sessions.

In order to both deal with the blunders of the past and not to cast an Impedimentia on the day-to-day running of the M.O.M., some concessions had to be made for the others laws. And it was this measure that Hermione and many others were taking advantage of to force through their personal bills.

Oh, the D.E.C. had tried to substantiate their objection, make no mistake. But were against Hermione Granger, who had years of practice against the sheer and willful stupidity of Ron Weasely. For every case or ruling they raised as precedent against her, for every worst-case-scenario, she had three to counter and more hard facts on vampire lifestyle than the independent bureaus of statistics had managed to garner in a decade, already verified by not one but two of the same bureaus that the official Department of Statistics contracted with. She was accused more than once of misconstruing the laws she cited, but she pointed out that she was following them to the very letter of the law and unless someone had conveniently decided to store memories of past Wizengamot sessions, the spirit in which the laws was passed would simply have to remain in doubt (Of course, she'd done careful research before using this defense; the process of preserving memories for Pensieve use was a fairly modern innovation, corresponding roughly to the Muggle Industrial Revolution. Memories before that period had been preserved, the talking portraits the most "white" of such methods, but testimony of the portraits wasn't valid within the legislative functions of the Wizengamot. As it was, she didn't think the spirit of a case that had been decided so a very influential wizard wouldn't have to register his sphinx as a dangerous beast-citing its human intelligence-would have helped her cause overmuch.)

With looks more murderous than a collective _Avada Kedavra, _the committee had passed her bill.

She strode out the room in a flourish of robes that would have made Snape proud, Lloyd silently falling in beside her in the hallway. She made it just out of sight of the room before she collapsed.

-X-X-X-

"What happened?" Harry demanded of the vampire, crumpled note still clutched in his hand, eyes dropping immediately to the figure in his arms. "Hermione?"

"Quiet, please, Mr. Potter. The Mistress wouldn't like it known she collapsed."

"Is that why you haven't taken her to St. Mungo's yet?" Harry inquired through clenched teeth.

The vampire's eyes narrowed. "There is nothing wrong with her that needs treatment at a hospital. She just needs to rest, nothing more. And to eat something that isn't tea and toast. Surely you must know how the Mistress gets."

Harry ran a hand through his hair, sighing at the sight Hermione made, swathed in the formal robes required for a Wizengamot meeting. Even her hair looked tired, only one limp curl escaping from the rigid violence that had tamed the rest of it into a severe knot. "I got it."

"I wished to care for Mistress myself, but her mind won't rest at ease if her work is neglected. I'm in no position to ask a favor of you, Mr. Potter, but I would greatly appreciate it if you would look after the Mistress until I gather up the paperwork and do some shopping. I'm afraid her cupboards at home are rather bare."

Harry sighed again. "Don't worry about it. But rather than taking her home," he glanced at the vampire, "and I don't suppose you'd tell me where she lives?" Lloyd shook his head. "Rather than taking her home, she'll stay with me until she's better." It came out more roughly than he'd intended, but he was still rather thrown by the vampire addressing Hermione as "the mistress." _Hermione, if I judged your life by your letters, I think I'd miss most of it. For two months after the vampire case, I see you more than I have since_, his mind went blank at the thought of that long year, then he shook it off, _and then for the last two months you've made Ron's letters seem rambling. Just what have you been up to?_

The last question was apparently said aloud, for Lloyd answered. "She is changing the world," he said quietly, a very warm, fond look in his downcast eyes. "You offer is very kind, Mr. Potter, but I'm sure the Mistress wouldn't want to trouble you. If you'll only give me a few hours to make arrangements-."

Harry cut him off. "No. Hermione will stay with me. You can bother her at Grimmauld Place if you like, but I don't think much of your piss poor supervision if you let her work herself into this state to begin with."

"It isn't my place-."

Again, Harry didn't let him finish his sentence. "Yes. It is. I don't know what the deal is with you calling her 'mistress,' but if you're her assistant, what Hermione needs most isn't a paper pusher, but a nanny. She doesn't have any concept of pacing herself. You should know that by now. Somehow she got it into her head that she needs to save the world single-handedly, and that's fine, because if anyone can do it, it's Hermione. But if someone doesn't look out for her, she'll starve herself to death along the way."

"I don't wish to intrude in her life," Lloyd said firmly.

Harry stared at the man, rather flummoxed. "Alright, I'll admit to not knowing half of what you two are up to together, but I'd wager my entire fortune that Hermione is unabashedly nosy about _your _life. And she might not like it, but that gives you the right to prod right back."

"As you do, Mr. Potter?" Lloyd said cuttingly, but he didn't raise his voice. "I am her assistant, but you are her friend. Perhaps this lecture is best turned upon yourself."

The tips of Harry's ears flushed and it was only because he knew they were in a public place that the argument didn't escalate. "Hermione and I understand-.

It was Lloyd's turn to cut him off. "No, I don't believe either of you really understand each other, when it comes down to it, if you'll forgive the observance of an outsider."

"That's bollocks."

"Then this is the natural distance between friends? You speak once or write once a week?"

"We're both busy-you should know that better than anyone."

"But no matter how busy she was in these last two months, Hermione did not neglect her other obligations."

"Obligations?"

"What those obligations are is irrelevant. What I mean to suggest is that despite her schedule, she made time for all these things, but as soon as a plausible excuse arrived, she penciled you out of her life and you, just as easily, let her."

"I don't know what you think-."

"What are you afraid of?" Lloyd said suddenly. "Why are the two of you so willing to let seven years of friendship fade away like a dream at the first touch of sunlight?"

_Because every time Hermione is with me, the nightmares are worse. _The words were on the tip of Harry tongue, like they were drawn there by truth serum, but he swallowed the startling realization down. _Oh_.

"Did you realize something, Mr. Potter?"

_Was it that way for Hermione, too? _he asked himself silently. _She never says anything, but...at least Avada Kedavra is painless. The worst part is dying is that I can't tell anyone that, for a moment, I wanted to board the train at Platform 9 3/4. To be with my parents and Sirius. To leave all the blood and fighting behind. Every time I think about it, I feel angry, because I feel guilty for wanting to leave, but why should I feel guilty? I spent my entire childhood fighting an evil wizard and when I wasn't fighting Voldemort, I was dealing with the fallout. But I can't say that to anyone, because it's unfair to burden anyone else. _

_ I wonder...does Hermione feel the same way? _Harry opened himself to the memories of their friendship, both the good and the bad. _Did Hermione ever-I know she nagged at me all the time, but did Hermione _ever _tell me anything really personal? I mean, she more or less guided me by the hand through that Cho incident, but I was just as surprised as anyone else at the ball. Isn't that the sort of thing you at least tell your friends? And it's not like I had many friends on speaking terms with me most of that year-it wasn't like there was a line. _He searched his memory, but found that though he was certain that Hermione could probably accurately produce an overview of his entire childhood, he didn't even know where she lived. Her parents were dentists, that he knew, and he'd seen them once, but that was all he knew of the personal Hermione.

Maybe she'd felt she couldn't confide in him because he was male, but even wracking his memory, he found he couldn't even imagine Hermione having female friends close enough to act as confidants. Not to be insulting to the girls she'd roomed with, but none of them even stood close to Hermione's daunting intellectual level. And while she'd seemed to enjoy dressing up from time to time and wasn't completely immune to puberty, no matter the front she'd put up, those concerns registered near the bottom of her list.

Hermione had been by his side through nearly every adventure, both great and small. Was that part of the reason? Ron had other friends outside the two of them, the ones he retreated to every time they were in a tiff. And Harry had other acquaintances. But who had Hermione gone to when they'd isolated her?

_Who does Hermione have? Her torture at Malfoy Manor, so many things happened so quickly after that. She wouldn't want to burden any of the Weasely family. Why couldn't you have told me then, Hermione? _

Harry had to physically shake himself from his reverie. "Just thinking," he said gruffly. He pulled a Self-Inking quill from his robes and scribbled the address of Grimmauld Place on Lloyd's note before handing it to the vampire. The following exchange was awkward as he accepted Hermione's weight and passed the sheet of paper to the vampire, who looked at it curiously. Settling Hermione more comfortably in his arms, he said, "That's the address for Grimmauld Place. When you're done gathering her paperwork and maybe picking up some clothes for her, I think you and I ought to have a talk about Hermione's newest crusade."

"Shouldn't that be a talk you have with the Mistress?"

"We're talking about Hermione," Harry said with a chuckle. "I'll take any advantage I can get."

-X-X-X-

Late that night, long after the vampire had taken his leave and Harry had already went to sleep once, only to wake uneasily not more than an hour or two later, he found himself sitting on the edge of the bed in Regulus's bedroom, which had temporarily become Hermione's. The steady rise and fall of her chest was reassuring after a nightmare in which, strangely enough, she hadn't been killed in front of him. That wouldn't have been that unusual. Instead, they'd been traveling together. It hadn't seemed like they'd been living in the tent, though he had his share of nightmares about those times. It was simply dream-knowledge.

They'd been walking through a forest, decked in the colors of autumn, when Hermione had happened upon an arch. It was the same arch as the Veil in the Department of Mysteries, but with the same dream logic, it had seemed to him just as sinister, the arch leading into a long hallway the ended in darkness.

And Hermione, without a word, with nothing more than a gentle, fond smile, had let go of his hand and strode down into the darkness.

"I didn't think my abandonment issues were _that _bad," he muttered wearily, knowing Hermione wouldn't wake. After a ferocious argument, he and her vampire had agreed to let her sleep until morning, when he would make her eat a proper breakfast for once.

"Sorry," he said softly after a long moment, the sound of their breathing the only noise in the still house. "I probably won't think to say that to you when you wake up, so I'm saying it now. I know there are times when I'm a rotten friend, but I won't take all the blame for that. There are a lot of people like you in the Aurors-people that care about being right more than they care about anything else. Though none of them likely have your track record for actually being right-my Firebolt, the Half-Blood Prince's book. That only makes you more insufferable, by the way, not less."

"If you were awake, you'd probably give me that look you sometimes give Ron, like he's pitiful beyond words for monologuing to you like this."

Another long stretch of silence in the dark stretched between them. Harry expected to be awake for another hour or so before he'd be able to fall asleep again, only to wake up at least twice more in the night. _A proper Occlumens wouldn't be bothered by nightmares like this, but I was always rubbish at it. _

But, to his great surprise, he found himself becoming drowsy, lulled by the comfort of having someone, anyone else at his side. He groaned. "I'm going to hear about this in the morning," he grumbled as he stealthily slipped beneath the covers, his hand finding Hermione's surprisingly chill one. "But, I own this bed, so you can't say anything about it," he reminded the sleeping woman across from him, whose expression of exhausted repose did not change.

-X-X-X-

Shock was his first emotion upon waking and seeing early morning sunlight filtering through the single, much-prized window of Regulus's room. Only Dreamless Sleep potion would normally allow him such a restful night and the long-term side-effects weren't worth constant use of the potion.

It was only when he started to rise that he realized his hand was still entangled with Hermione's. Gently letting go, he went to his own room to get dressed. When Kreacher came in to give his morning greetings, he asked the house elf to wake Hermione and took himself to the kitchen. With a rueful smile, he thought that there was at least one good thing that had come from his childhood. He could both cook and clean.

Though, as Hermione stumbled to the table, he didn't know if she would be awake enough to appreciate it. Strangely enough, she looked almost more tired than she had before, peering blearily around the room like she'd never been in it before.

"Hermione." Her back went stiff at the sound of his voice and her head turned toward him slowly, like a dramatic shot in a horror movie. If it wasn't so funny, it might have been offensive.

"Harry?" she asked carefully. "What am I doing in Grimmauld Place?"

Harry was struck by a sudden impulse. "It's all just a dream, Hermione," he said soothingly, though he was struggling to keep his face straight. "Though why you're dreaming about my making you breakfast is something you might want to examine more closely once you wake up."

There was a moment of stunned silence. "Harry James Potter, if there was something on this table that wouldn't break if I threw it at you, consider it thrown."

"Noted," he said cheerfully. "Now, is there anything special you would like for breakfast, _my mistress_?"

Hermione groaned. "Lloyd," she said with exasperation. "He did explain to you it was a ruse?"

"Oh, he explained. Your assistant was most helpful."

"Harry?"

"Yes?"

"Whatever method you used, I don't appreciate you extorting information from Lloyd," Hermione told him, a current of deep suspicion running through her words.

"Well, as you never tell me anything, I have to sometimes stoop to asking other people."

"Harry, I don't remember a clause in our friendship contract that says I have to tell you everything."

"Well, that's good," he retorted cheerfully, "because I don't remember ever drawing up a friendship contract. Which, upon reflection, is probably surprising. How done do you like your bacon?"

"Not nearly as burnt as you seem to like yours. So, what exactly did Lloyd tell you?"

"Just a few things of little interest. I mean, everyone runs pubs for vampires these days. And more or less makes a blatant challenge to the Wizengamot. Being introduced to the Sires of London isn't even worth mentioning."

He glanced back at Hermione, who'd laid her face against the table, distorting her words a little when she spoke. "Can I pencil in this lecture later?"

"No, you can't. In fact, you're not in going in to work today."

Hermione's head flew up at that, tangled hair making her look even more frazzled. "What?"

"You collapsed. In exchange for me not taking you to St. Mungo's, you are on home rest."

"So...you're letting me go home?" Hermione said hopefully. Harry just gave her a speaking look, knowing that the moment she was out from under his watchful eye she'd do something outrageous again. _Was this how Hermione felt being friends with me at Hogwarts? Merlin, it's exhausting. _

"I thought not," she murmured.

"If you'd just taken care of yourself, this wouldn't have happened," he chided her.

"Harry, do you know how long it normally takes to prepare a bill? It isn't two months, let me tell you that. Do have any idea of the pressure I was under?"

"No," he admitted easily. "But I will let you tell me all about it. _While _you eat breakfast," he emphasized.

"Worrywart," Hermione said fondly.

-X-X-X-

Hermione had promised Harry, in all sincerity, she would tell him right away if Abram Bone spoke to her again. She hadn't said a word about Gerard Revelin, which was a good thing, she supposed, because the very night she returned home, the Sire was waiting at her door.

"Sorry to have kept you waiting," she apologized, again struck by just how handsome the dark-haired vampire was. Even though she stood some distance from him and 'fragrant' would be only a polite term to describe the smell of the alley in front of the Phial & Philter, she could already smell the warm spice of a vampire's scent.

"You didn't," he said in a tone that implied, _As if I would have been lingering on your doorstep, little mortal. _"We received word of your collapse and stay with the Potter boy."

"Are you watching me?" she asked, more surprised that she was neither surprised nor offended than either of the latter.

"Wouldn't you?"

"Yes," she said unabashedly. "Would you like to come inside?" she asked.

"Are you sure that's wise?" he asked, the look in his single good eye dangerous.

"Well, if you're just here to leave my mangled body behind, you can do it inside, like civil people," Hermione said with a sniff, for some reason not at all intimidated by Revelin, though he'd certainly been scary enough the first time she'd met him.

She clicked her tongue as she walked in, wall lights magically flaring to life in her presence. "Dusty," she pronounced. "And the spiders are probably back. Isn't there any such thing as self-renewing cleaning spells?"

Revelin raised a brow at her question, silently asking why she expected him to know such a thing. Then he turned his attention away, looking around the room. She was glad that she'd finally taken time to clean the first two floors, given that though he likely should have looked shabbier than he did, his physical attractiveness and personal confidence made his clothing look like an intentional fashion statement. He wasn't the first guest the Phial & Philter had received, but he was without a doubt the most important.

"So you live in a potions shop?" he asked curiously.

"Yes. What's your home like?"

"It's not a potions shop," he said dryly. "Are you going to hire someone to actually run the business for you or are you simply going to sit on your stock until the preservation spells wear off?"

"I haven't found anyone with the specialized training that looks like they'd work for the kind of salary I could afford to pay," Hermione said, beckoning him up to the third floor, where she indicated he was to make himself at home. "It's not like working at Sanguine or running errands. But someone will come along."

"So you are looking?"

"Do you have someone in mind?" Hermione asked as she poured him tea, not realizing what she was doing until too late. But he waved off her offer of blood.

"Perhaps. I'll have to think about it for a while."

After he'd taken the first sip of tea and winced at the strength, Hermione set down her own cup. "So, Mr. Revelin, time to get down to brass tacks. For clarity, I'd like to know what Mr. Bone expects of me and what our working relationship will be."

"Mr. Bone," Revelin said in a sardonic tone, "expects nothing more of you than exactly what you've been doing. He's not naive enough to press for equality, nor does he want it, but what you are doing now will set the framework for a revolution within our own ranks. Equality, to you wizards, would mean accepting your laws as absolute over us. Quite frankly that would put us in an impossible position, because the laws of the Ministry were developed for and by wizards."

"I understand that," Hermione said cautiously.

"Not really, you don't," he said coolly. "But leaving that for now, as for our working relationship, you might think of me as your vampire ambassador. Any business concerning us should be brought to me and I will take care of it."

"No," Hermione said firmly.

Revelin looked a little stunned, as if had been some time since anyone had denied him.

"I'm afraid that wouldn't work out very well," she said diplomatically. "After all, this first law was easy enough. But if you want anything more, I have to know what vampires need and want. And I can't do that by just reading reports or getting news second-hand from you. I have Sanguine, but that's just a tiny sector of the vampire population. It would be easy to assume that your needs are the same as a witch or wizard with some little accommodations made for things like blood, but it's not that easy, is it? I made a mistake like that once before, with the house elves. You'll probably have to be a little patient with me-growing up a Muggleborn, the only differences between people were superficial things like skin color and bone structure. I'm likely going to make lots of assumptions."

"That was...quite a speech," Revelin said. "Impressive, even, for a girl your age. Fair enough. Give me a little time to think."

Hermione did as he requested, quietly drinking her own tea and reviewing all she had ever read of vampires in her head.

"The vampires will still be reluctant to approach you directly," Revelin said at last. "But that will change with time. You will also have to be patient. Think of me as a secretary-I know you dislike it, but once they realize what a valuable resource you are, the Masters won't hesitate to drain you dry, metaphorically speaking. You are not a god and your time is finite. You cannot solve the small problems of every vampire in this city, let alone this country. I will make certain the cases you work on are worth your time and effort." He read the stubborn look on Hermione's face quite accurately. "If you are not convinced, I will keep a log of all the petty problems brought to me, just so you can understand the scale of what you would be taking on. Do not forget, I am also sacrificing my valuable time to this cause."

That reminded her of something she had been meaning to ask. "Why _are_ you the one helping me?"

A corner of his lip twitched in irritation. "Because Abram Bone has an obnoxious sense of humor. Once he heard you lived in a potions shop, he couldn't resist sending a former Potions Master."


	6. The Housewitch's War

Disclaimer: If I owned Harry Potter, The Epilogue and about the last hundred pages of the final novel would never have been written. Therefore, rest assured that it still belongs in the capable hands of Rowling.

A/N: Thank you, everyone, for your enormous patience between updates. I hope you enjoy the newest chapter.

Cry Out, Curlew

-Chapter Six-

The Housewitch's War

_A single hasty word can destroy a year's patient toil. That, of course, presupposes the point and purpose of this toil were themselves well-considered, not simply well-intentioned. Patience alone is stubbornness, not virtue. -_Gerard Revelin, Sire

Hermione Granger disliked many things. Being underestimated for her blood and gender, underperforming on something she _knew _she'd mastered, and weak tea and weaker minds stood high on that list. But they were all overshadowed, at present, by being _managed_.

"This is my home," Hermione said sullenly. "I should have final say what goes on here."

Lloyd nodded in polite agreement and carried on putting away groceries she hadn't asked him to buy.

"Harry put you up to this, didn't he?" Hermione grumbled, shifting sullenly inside her woolen cocoon. The young witch was currently bundled in a thick blanket on the threadbare couch that had come with the house, recovering from the bane that neither the Wizarding nor the Muggle world could banish: the common cold. Perhaps she'd been more tired than she thought, for no sooner had she left Grimmauld and had her talk with Revelin than she'd come down with a case of the sniffles.

While she would have been content with being left alone to drink copious amounts of honey-and-lemon tea, Lloyd had taken it upon himself to be her minder. Which she most emphatically did not need.

"Mr. Potter is simply concerned for your health," Lloyd told her evenly. "You do live alone, Mistress."

"I'm not some senile old witch in danger of dying and not being discovered for weeks on end," Hermione said irritably. "I've a cold, that's all."

"Until it develops into pneumonia, settles in your lungs, and you expire without anyone being the wiser," he said with just a touch of reproach as he ran his finger along the shelf of her cupboard, frowning faintly as it came away dusty.

"I eat take-out at the Ministry, most days," Hermione said defensively, though he wasn't even looking at her.

"Yes, I remember our ten-minute lunch breaks," he said with some amusement as he somehow located a rag and began to wipe down her shelves. "I also remember being glad that I needn't make use of them, as you tended to take two bites of a sandwich before you recalled something that absolutely couldn't wait. There were times when I thought you might be some sort of creature that survives on information alone."

Hermione scoffed and was about to tell Lloyd there wasn't any such beast, but she refrained. Even as he began to load her shelves with preserves. And produced a bag of what looked like grapefruit, somehow locating a dish to put them in. Hermione knew he didn't have any magic to conceal such a thing, even if he'd bothered, but she couldn't remember seeing the bowl in her admittedly cursory exploration of her kitchen. Other edibles were produced, but Hermione had taken to scowling blackly at her assistant and searching for a clean tissue. When Lloyd continued to ignore her mutterings, she traipsed downstairs, cocoon and all, intending to do a bit of light inventory work on the shop since all her files from the Ministry had been missing when she awoke that morning.

"Who does he think employs him?" she grumbled to herself as she tried not to trip over the end of her blanket, wrapping it more firmly around her shoulders like a mantle. She was almost to the landing of the first floor, which was the storeroom, when she noticed lights on the ground floor. Brown eyes narrowed.

_There shouldn't be anyone down there to activate the lighting spell and I haven't left the second floor all day, _she thought hazily, her mind working at a somewhat slower speed than normal. Her wand appearing reflexively in her hand, she put her back to the wall and continued down the stairs, her house slippers soft on the stone. It never crossed her mind to call to Lloyd for help.

She tried to quiet her breathing as she reached the bottom of the stairs, but she had to settle for casting a muffling spell. Cautiously peering out, she screeched, "That is it! This no longer counts as an invasion, it's an infestation! Don't the two of you have anything else you ought to be doing?" This proclamation would have been more of a success if not for her muffling spell, which successfully cloaked her words. Perhaps some of her ire was sensed, for Revelin looked up and cocked a dark brow, dismissed her a heartbeat later, and went back to reading the ledgers.

Sourly cancelling her spell, Hermione marched over to the long, gleaming hardwood counter that the Sire was presently leaning casually against, as if he had every right in the world to be there.

"You're not like snakes," Hermione muttered, "You're like cats." She would know, having been treated to a similar expression by Crookshanks many a time.

Standing there silently glaring at Revelin, arms crossed awkwardly across her chest, feet shoulder width apart, he eventually drawled, "And how may I help you today, Miss Granger?"

"I think the question is, Mr. Revelin, how I may help you today," Hermione said grimly. "Or are you haunting my shop for a lark?"

"Simple curiosity, Miss Granger."

"Oh?" That sort of a demand usually set Harry and Ron to talking, familiar as they were with her. Revelin ignored it. "Mr. Revelin, is there a reason why you're reading through the ledgers?"

"It seems you've come into a quite well-stocked potions shop, if your clientele is searching for the highly expensive and barely legal. However, your basic stock falls short of what one would hope to see upon entering a potions shop."

"Must I answer to you about my own potions shop? I'm afraid if you haven't a message for me from Mr. Bone, I must ask you to leave."

His single stunning blue eye caught her own impatient brown orbs. "I am interested in doing you a favor. Still going to turn me out?"

"It depends on the nature of this favor," Hermione said grumpily, far more aware nowadays of what favors cost in the wizarding world than when she'd graduated from Hogwarts.

"If you find me two or three competent daylight assistants who can still use magic, I'll manage your little potions shop for you."

Hermione was immediately wary. "And what, exactly, do you stand to gain from this, Mr. Revelin?"

A wry expression crossed his face. "A bit of a hobby. Access to the Phial & Philter as I please, which will make my job as ambassador easier. And the satisfaction of having defied Abram Bones expectations." From his tone, it was clear that the last was his primary reason.

"Isn't that a pretty petty reason for taking on something like this?" Hermione inquired archly. "And how do I know you are actually qualified to run a potions shop? You could just be putting me on."

"When you have all the time in the world, you will find far more reason for being petty than when a warmblood. As for my qualifications, please feel free to quiz me, Miss Granger."

A bit brassed off with the vampires invading her life, Hermione proceeded to do just that, quickly satisfying herself that he knew the basics before moving on to potions that would stump the average wizard and made an elegant dark brow rise.

"I am surprised you even know of the existence of some of these potions, Miss Granger," Revelin said when she had to pause for a moment to think of something even more obscure. Some of her questions had been about potions that hadn't been in vogue for the last hundred years, but he answered them all with the self-assured air that she was beginning to find a bit frustrating. "Some of their applications are morally dubious, to say the least."

Perhaps she shouldn't have quizzed him on that coercion potion meant to assure the loyalty and honesty of the domestic help, but she'd been scrambling, wanting to somehow assert her intellectual superiority. But Revelin was no Lloyd. Lloyd was not unintelligent, but even before his transformation Hermione doubted he had been more than a mediocre wizard. Revelin, on the other hand, seemed to have an astoundingly thorough knowledge of potions theory.

"So, have I met your very exacting standards?" Revelin asked with a touch of asperity.

"Indeed," Hermione answered slowly. "It will be a pleasure to work with you, Mr. Revelin."

Humor quirked his lips. "I suppose, after that little test, I should not worry overmuch about the competence of any clerks you will find me. Perhaps I should worry about you discovering someone who meets your standards, however."

-X-X-X-

It took two weeks, by which time she was well over her cold, to find and recruit proper clerks for the Phial & Philter. Her method, while not illegal, was well into the territory of unethical. She went through the Ministry's files on werewolves. Technically, these files were no more classified than the Animagus lists, but generally employers only requested checks on prospective employees. They did not shuffle through the files seeking prospective employees who fit their criteria, two of the most important of which was to be a witch or wizard and also be willing to report to a vampire. Only desperation or an affection for dark magic would normally drive a member of Britain's wizarding population to such dire straits and as she would not accept the latter, she took advantage of the former.

And there were many, many desperate to choose from. After the Winter War, the werewolf population in London alone had increased by 15 percent. Voldemort had wished to convert those he could not subdue by force, giving them only the option of life under his rule or discrimination under the Ministry. Hermione was grateful that the War had not dragged on. Starvation and despair would have eventually overrode all but the strongest of morals.

She had narrowed the field to five or six of the most promising, then after showing copies of the files to Revelin, they had finally focused on two. Both had accepted her offer of employment, which is why she found herself, very late on a Saturday, admitting two jittery werewolves onto the premises.

"Come in, come in," she urged them when they hesitated at the threshold, wide eyes taking in not only her shop, but the vampire leaning quite casually against the counter.

"Yes'm," the old one mumbled, ducking his head and removing his hat as he entered. Well into his early fifties, Philip Montjoy had been living with his condition for almost twenty years. Which, doubtless, was why he looked as if he was well into his sixties. But the wrinkles on his face were writ in lines of kindness, soft and pleasant crow's feet spreading from the corners of his eyes from a lifetime of smiling. He had a full mustache on his upper lip, snowy white and well managed, which reflected what scanty hair he had left on the sides of his head, the area covered by his hat completely bald. He wore a quite proper suit, brushed until it was almost threadbare, and a good ten years out of date. "Pleased to meet you again, Miss Granger," he said, shaking her hand with a grip that was wanting.

"The pleasure is mine, Mr. Montjoy," Hermione reassured him.

Turning to her next guest, she found the boy, who wasn't but three years older than her, which meant he was in his early twenties, was watching her with narrowed eyes. Mycroft Pennelegion had been a third year at her Sorting, which meant she'd had little enough opportunity to interact with the Slytherin graduate. His father actually sat on the Economic Committee proper, which meant that almost the moment he'd learned of his son's condition, he'd quietly disowned him. And for a steady supply of Wolfsbane potion to buy his silence, the junior Pennelegion had agreed.

In appearance, Pennelegion made for an attractive reminder of the time when they had still been a British Empire and the wizards of it had ventured into Africa to plunder both the exotic resources to be found there and the unique magic the continent's shamans had practiced. By the time the wizards had finished mandating and regulating their magical population to resemble their own Ministry of Magic, there had been several old families who had welcomed heirs with skin darker than their own. This was not unique to the African continent, of course, as much the same thing had happened to Indian mystics and myriad others.

It was unfair to lay all the blame for the great culture of secrecy on the shoulders of the British, who had suffered, like much of the European continent, from the witch scares that began as early as the thirteenth century and continued unabated until the modern era, especially once King James I made witchcraft a crime within his realm in 1563. Even Hermione wasn't naive enough to say that openness with Muggles was a wise course of action: only their own disbelief kept wizardkind safe from the Muggles, who far outnumbered them in terms of population and artillery.

The gold-striated eyes watched her warily, but not with ill intent, set in a handsome, dark-skinned face with cheekbones that would have made Lavender Brown weep with envy. If anything, Hermione would venture to say that Pennelegion was afraid of _her_, but the idea was so preposterous she dismissed it out of hand. Pasting her most pleasant and professional smile on her face, Hermione offered the man her hand. "I'm glad you could make it, Mr. Pennelegion."

His grip was firmer than Montjoy's, but brief. Retracting his hand quickly, he stepped inside, removing his hat only once he was indoors. Shutting the door firmly behind him, Hermione herded the two werewolves to the table and chairs she had conjured in the open area in front of the counter, tea set kept warm with a spell. Inviting them to sit, she eyeballed the vampire, who gave her an arch look before joining the others at the table. Hermione sat down last.

"Mr. Revelin, allow me to introduce Mr. Montjoy and Mr. Pennelegion, who will be your subordinates at the Phial & Philter." Each nodded politely to the vampire. "Mr. Montjoy, Mr. Pennelegion, this is Mr. Revelin, our esteemed Potions Master here. I believe we discussed him in our interview."

"Yes," Montjoy replied, with all the good cheer one could wish from someone in the service industry. "I have never worked with a vampire before. I believe it will be a unique and edifying experience. I do not doubt we have much to learn from you, Mr. Revelin."

Revelin nodded in acknowledgement of the sentiment, but did not return it.

Hermione turned her gaze to Pennelegion, who quite properly, but with less spirit, said, "Miss Granger seemed quite confident in your expertise."

"And in the wizarding world, that does say a great deal, does it not?" Montjoy added.

Revelin's lips curled upward. "I have no doubt. I have lived longer than her parents have been born, but it seems that Miss Granger has spent all her time hoarding knowledge and not wasting it in petty pursuits. Her assessment was thorough."

Embarrassed by the back-handed praise, Hermione quickly offered her guests tea before she stood and retrieved the contracts she had prepared. Laying them before each of her guests, she said, "These are the contracts for your employment, which are conditional upon your signing. I will say that there is a binding laid on them-you will find any breach of contract _unpleasant._"

Montjoy looked a bit surprised at the flat tone of her voice in the last sentence, but neither of the others looked unduly bothered. Hermione gave them time to read through her terms, answering their few questions. She had done her best to spell out exactly what she expected of them and the remunerations they would receive.

"A secrecy clause?" Pennelegion inquired, brows furrowed. "What exactly do you intend to deal in, Miss Granger, that you require a secrecy clause?"

Revelin answered. "It's standard procedure for potions shops. To make certain that you do not release the names of our suppliers to our customers, to prevent you from releasing purchase receipts to anyone with a Ministry warrant to prevent intellectual sabotage in the potions field, and to prevent you, in this case, from associating Miss Granger's name with the Phial & Philter. For the moment, Miss Granger wishes to be a silent proprietor. This is to assure her that you will respect her wishes on the matter."

"Then you do not intend to deal in black market items?" Pennelegion pressed.

Hermione frowned at him. "No, I do not, Mr. Pennelegion." Though some of the sources she had been feeling out were perhaps less licensed to deal in the goods they supplied than the Ministry would like. For most, it was through no personal fault of their own, as it took years to obtain some licenses without the proper contacts in the Ministry. For others, well, they were all the suppliers that Revelin had recommended. They made Hermione uneasy, but she had few contacts in the field, even among those who dealt wholesale in potioneering basics. "Though the Phial & Philter _will _specialize in the rare and the unusual. Due to our location, we will not be able to compete with the apothecaries in Diagon Alley. But if we can build a select clientele for ourselves among specialists, it will be enough to keep the store afloat."

Revelin broke in. "The profit margin on the items we will sell is far wider than on beetle's eyes. In fact, you might say we'll be making a killing."

Pennelegion showed an impressive doggedness. "But if you _are_ caught and prosecuted for dealing in black market goods, these contracts will mean that we'll be charged with conspiracy at the very least."

Hermione leaned forward. "Mr. Pennelegion. Allow me to reiterate: I have no intention of dealing with banned items, though we will deal with restricted items. And even if I somehow had a change of heart, these," and she prodded his contract with her finger, "should induce you to make certain we are never caught."

Surprisingly, Montjoy chuckled and signed his name to his contact. "Very well, Miss Granger. I look forward to working for you."

She could almost see the calculations taking place in Pennelegion's brain. Then, frowning, he too scrawled his signature, wincing as his pen drew blood for ink. "Blood magic is black magic, Miss Granger," he informed her.

Hermione sniffed. "Blood magic is old and crude, but it is also binding. It wasn't until the twentieth century that it fell out of favor. And you cannot tell me that Vows, which bind magic and soul, are any whiter than this."

Pennelegion frowned, but as his signature was already on the contract, it was a bit late to make complaints. All eyes turned to Revelin, who finished reading his contract, which had been considerably shorter than the other two, then signed his name with a flourish. "I do not know if vampire blood will work to bind, but you have my word, that for now I am satisfied to follow the terms of your contract," he informed her.

Hermione nodded gravely, "Then, gentlemen, welcome to the Phial & Philter."

-X-X-X-

Her house, which had been silent, was suddenly never empty. Revelin might have lived there, for all she knew. He was there in the early morning when she left for the Ministry and when she returned, after dark had fallen, he was there. In the two weeks she'd been searching for employees, she had been busy at other fronts as well, having no word of new demands from the vampire faction. She'd bullied some poor fellow into renewing the restricted item licenses associated with the Phial & Philter and ordered in fresh shipments of the things Revelin had informed her were lacking or outdated in her inventory.

And she'd grimaced every time she calculated how much her Gringott's account suffered under the deluge of new demands. Her safety net, the monetary award that had come attached to her Order of Merlin, soon evaporated. Soon, all she had in ready cash were a few knuts and a single galleon, so she grimly determined she would have to use the money still in her Muggle accounts for grocery shopping for a while, lest she wanted to stop eating entirely.

Harry, for reasons best explained by his childhood, seemed to have both a sixth sense and the good sense not to broach the subject to her directly. He took to smuggling Kreacher's leftovers in for her lunch, explaining that he got tired of eating the same things day after day and Kreacher, like all house elves, did not know how to cook in moderation. Hermione was silently grateful, especially with a spelled container of Kreacher's cheese and onion soup and cottage loaf, with a marbled teabread for dessert, tucked under her arm.

It will still surreal to apparate home and find light filtering from behind the barred windows, the panes of glass now sparkling, thanks to Montjoy's diligent effort. He looked up as the door opened and he paused in wiping down the counter to smile at her. Satisfaction was nearly tangible about him. "Good evening, Miss Granger."

"Good evening, Mr. Montjoy. How was business today?"

"Oh, it was a bit slow in the morning, but what business we did was very good. I am told some of the ingredients we keep in stock are difficult to lay hands on nowadays."

"I would imagine," Hermione said dryly. Even she had been a bit astonished at some of the prices Revelin had set on ingredients, but he apparently knew the market far better than she.

"So, whose life did you improve today, Miss Granger?" he asked as he resumed his task, though the great counter was already glossy. In his apron and with his friendly smile, you might imagine he worked at Honeydukes, rather than in a Knockturn Alley potions shop.

"It was a bit of a slow day," Hermione remarked dryly. "Is Mr. Revelin in yet?"

"Upstairs, Miss. He's already started inventory."

Hermione nodded, shifting her container so it rested more comfortably on her hip. "And Mr. Pennelegion?"

The aforementioned wizard appeared on the stairs, as if speaking his name had conjured him. Several boxes were stacked comfortably in his arms, but Montjoy still came from behind the counter to assist him. Pennelegion glanced at her. "Welcome home, Miss Granger."

She smiled at him. "Just about time to close up for the evening?" she inquired. The Phial & Philter ran on a more flexible schedule than most businesses, given that they only had two clerks and she insisted they take at least two days off a week, whichever days they liked so long as they did so in shifts so that the store was not unmanned.

"Wanted to finish the restocking first. We won't be able to stay over tomorrow night," Pennelegion said grimly.

Wiping her instinctive sympathy from her expression, because she knew he did not wish to see it, Hermione understood immediately. Tomorrow was the first of the three nights of the full moon. She had offered both of them the days off, but both had insisted that though they would be in late and would have to leave early, the Phial & Philter would be open.

For less than a week into their employment, it showed a remarkable dedication, but Hermione had hired them because she expected it to be so. "Well, I'll be in the flat if you need me," she told them.

"Good night, Miss Granger," they said in near chorus.

Greeting a distracted Revelin at the first floor, she climbed up to the second and, with a sigh, opened the door to her empty apartment. She, in a gesture that felt pathetic even to her, left the door open so she could hear the sounds of the others below. Hermione didn't own a telly, but she did have a radio, so she turned it on low and sat down to her lonely dinner with companions but no company.

When she'd mopped up the last of the soup and put her dessert away to enjoy later, she traveled down a floor to the storeroom. "Something you need, Miss Granger?" Revelin asked without looking up at her.

"No."

"Then why are you just standing there?"

Hermione wrung her hands, then took a deep breath. "I'd like you to tell me," she said firmly.

"And what, might I ask, do you wish me to tell you?"

"What does a vampire need? What makes them happy?" she asked.

"What makes anyone happy?" he retorted, still counting the bundles of dried hyssop hanging from the ceiling.

"I mean, what I have are numbers. Just numbers. I know the average Master vampire lives in a clutch of four to five, while a Sire can keep a household of up to sixteen lesser vampires. But is that a personal choice or it is vampiric instinct? Are there Master who choose to live alone? Sires that choose not to turn other vampires? Would organizing some sort of philanthropic organization to raise funds to buy a sector of magical London so that the houses can be repurposed to house a clutch help?"

"You'd have better luck buying a section of nonmagical London," Rivelin reported dryly. "You'd need to drain the coffers of an oldblood family to finance something like that. And it wouldn't be wise. You know why clutches don't grow bigger than that, don't you?"

"No," Hermione replied irritably.

"You are familiar with how vampires lure victims. We emit a pheromone that makes potential prey desire to be hunted. It acts upon the same part of the brain where sexual release and religious ecstasy occur, flooding the body with endorphins that cloud rational thought and adrenaline, which minimizes pain. In that sense, we are nothing more than a highly evolved predator."

"Yes, I am familiar with that much."

"Like many mammalian predators, we have a pack instinct, though we rarely hunt as a pack. Few vampires are capable of overriding this instinct. Abram Bone is one. And Christian Fell was another. He was infamous for abandoning his fledglings." He frowned as he came upon a bundle of lavender that apparently didn't meet his exacting standard, lifting if off the hook and tossing it unerringly toward a rubbish bin. "But living as a clutch increases a vampire's base instincts by orders of magnitude. The more of us gathered together, the closer we are to being nothing more than beasts," he said.

"Masters and Sires are what they are by virtue of their ability to remain unmoved by this phenomena. They retain human reason and one of the reasons they are able to impress their will upon their fledglings and followers is because living in a clutch dilutes their humanity. In a clutch of sixteen? They might as well be nothing more than dogs," he continued. "What those numbers represent is the number of vampires a Master or Sire can control without having them turn into raving menaces."

Stunned, Hermione blinked. "That's inhumane," she said weakly.

Revelin snorted. "That is life for us, Miss Granger. Some lucky few common vampires, such as your Lloyd, are capable of existing outside of a clutch-something Fell passed along in his bloodline to all of his fledglings. But most, when driven into the night to survive on their own, go mad just as a member of an overcrowded clutch would. Except they retain their higher functions. They become cold, exacting, calculating killers without the ability to care about the ramifications of their actions. All human feeling is lost to them. They only live to hunt and to hurt. And so it falls to we Sires to crush them, before they can do too much damage."

"So, what _can _I do?" Hermione asked plaintively.

"That remains a very good question, Miss Granger. Franchise Sanguine, make sure there are no obstacles to employment in the Muggle world, and learn about us. Your impatience for change is laudable, but what you must work for are long-term and sustainable changes, not something that will only ameliorate problems for a day, a month, or a year."

Hermione took a deep breath. "Teach a man to fish?" she jested weakly.

"Make certain he has access to a fishing rod and a license," he replied sardonically.

A/N: You know the thing that frustrates me most about writing this fic? Not having a working knowledge of modern British slang. If you've ever read Brit lit and American lit, you know the differences I'm speaking of. They're subtle, but they change the entire tone of a book. And, yes, King James I-you'll be familiar with him through the King James Bible, not his Daemonologie, unless you majored in History or Religion at university, or like me have some terribly erudite (it's a much better word than boring) hobbies-really did outlaw witchcraft. Never say that fanfiction didn't have anything useful to teach.

You should also be prepared to think of characters by their surnames-not all the countries of the world promote such familiarity even within the work hierarchy as the United States. So when Hermione calls Alastair Lloyd by his surname rather than his given name, it does not mean she does not regard him as a friend, but she is granting him both the distance and dignity he deserves as her employee. This is why in the books Harry addresses Draco as Malfoy and Draco addresses him as Potter, something often overblown in fics to turn their relationship into an antagonistic, "You are the bane of my existence," rivalry that really doesn't exist in that magnitude in the books. He is not taunting Harry or Hermione or Ron by it. Well, perhaps Ron, but really, when your last name is Weasley and you live in a house called the Burrow, it seems primed for schoolboy taunts. This is my understanding-if you know better, you may feel free to correct me. I am always eager to improve.

(A part of me is also grateful that I am not dealing with an original work in which the source language has an incredible number of suffixes and modes of address to indicate degree of familiarity, social position in respect to the addressee, gender and a dozen other things. As it was, I was struggling to recall all those things about social etiquette not in common use in the U.S.)


	7. The War Among the Bourgeoisie

Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to someone who actually speaks the Queen's English and doesn't have to go limping about the internet to bridge a culture gap without coming off as an utter moron to people on both sides of the Atlantic. I did invent the OCs, though, so no poaching s'il vous plait.

A/N: Alright, informal poll: How many of you would like to see Severus Snape have survived the final battle? He being the only exception I'm willing to make from canon deaths, thought whether or not this will actually happen in this story is still in limbo-his survival being the only one that I can make somewhat plausible and without infringing too much on the canon. Who else from Hogwarts would you like to make a reappearance in this story? Please read and review!

Cry Out, Curlew

Chapter Seven

-The War Among the Bourgeoisie-

Hermione had never had what one might call a social life. She socialized with Harry and the Weasley clan, when it did not interfere with her work or reading or research schedule, and she sometimes made time for cultural events, because her parents had raised her to believe that one could not really be civilized without at least a moderate appreciation for the fine arts, but neither was a priority.

Hermione was aware that she kept others at an emotional distance. She knew, for example, that Ron could never have wiped his parents memories and sent them away, as she had. In fact, she doubted the thought would have ever even have occurred to him, let alone that he could have gathered the emotional fortitude needed to systematically deconstruct his entire life, so that his parents could live on in oblivious safety. Neither would the thought have occurred to Harry, had his parents still been alive. It was not that they loved their parents more than Hermione, but that love was expressed in a different way.

And in Hermione's case, it was in an austere, intellectual manner that told her that living a lie in safety was worth more than any touching, last minute professions of familial love and devotion after a Death Eater attack.

She did not expect them to forgive her. But she expected that time would blunt the pain of that rejection, as it would be years yet before Wizarding Britain was stable enough for her to retrieve them.

Hermione was also not a fool. She knew that the actual chances of retrieving the original memories of Muggles who had been Obliviated ran parallel to a coma patient waking up. The longer she delayed, the less likely they would ever remember their daughter. But Hermione would not make the mistake that Harry had in fifth year, when his emotional agony had placed the one he cared for in the waiting palm of the opposition. She was perfectly content to harden her heart and hope that magi-medical advances would make the improbable possible when it was time to retrieve them.

This kind of extreme dedication to putting her mind to work long before her heart got an opinion was off-putting to most people, who misunderstood it as a lack of caring, but her experiences in putting her heart first in school had been rather traumatizing and she was not one to repeat mistakes. And since her care manifested itself in uncompromising bossiness which she would be the first to claim was _for their own good_ and a nosiness second only to her overwhelming intellectual curiosity, she supposed she ought to be grateful that she had many friends.

But, for the first time in her life, Hermione was surrounded by people who not only tolerated her, but some of them even seemed interested in her opinions and a unique few even had _something to add. _It was an entirely novel experience.

"You are an uncultured woman if you cannot appreciate abstract art," Revelin insisted.

Hermione wrinkled her nose. "No thank you."

She could detect a distinct sneer in his voice as he said, "Ah, I forgot. Fan of the Neoclassicists, wasn't it? All that extreme dedication to realism. You know, some of them painted their subjects nude before clothing them, in order to assure that the anatomy was spot-on accurate. They reduced art to something almost mathematical." There was distaste on his lips as he said the last word.

A brown brow rose. "Have you seen the Surrealists? Some of the proportions are absurd. And the Post-Modernists shouldn't even count as artists."

"Because art isn't something that needs be tethered to reality in order to be beautiful," Revelin replied. "Your lack of imagination is what makes you a second-grade potioneer. You can only copy, not invent."

Hermione sighed and pressed a hand briefly to an aching temple. A stack of files in the record room had collapsed on her today, forming a perfect end to a day that had dragged on and on, as today had been the monthly department meeting, where Mr. Brimble acknowledged all of the tedious little achievements of each and every member of the department and guided them through the fine print of new legislation that a dunce should have been able to understand without assistance. None of this would have been so intolerable if Revelin had not appraised her of this evening's rendezvous as she had come downstairs this morning.

"Technically, a lot Neoclassic art isn't tied to reality-it's idealized mathematically, just as you said. That's why most of it portrays mythological scenes rather than actual people. And though you criticize it for that reason, it happens to be what _I _admire about it."

With gratitude, Hermione noticed they were finally at the Dorothy and Michael Hintze Galleries, known more prosaically as Room 22 of the Victoria and Albert Museum. Something about the design of this museum suited it for meeting with vampires older than most of the artwork.

It was a Friday, which meant the museum was open late, night having settled her cloak firmly across the sky hours ago. Though, considering how cloudy it had been all day, it didn't get dark so much as get darker. Hermione caught sight of Bone quickly, standing with his hands begin his back, seemingly admiring one of the statues. She frowned as she recognized it.

It was a terracotta piece from the late eighteenth century, sculpted by Joseph Nollekens. A small piece, compared to the life-size or better statues it shared space with, only a little over eight inches tall, rough and unfinished in feel because it was a study, not a finished piece. A Hero dying in the arms of Victory. It was such a bloody depressing piece, made more personal than it should have been by her own experiences.

"Miss Granger," Abram Bone greeted her as she approached the statue, Revelin falling back wordlessly. An eerie shiver ran across her skin at the show of, if not subservience, then respect from the other Sire. She had seen it before, in that room where they had all gathered, the remaining Sires of Greater London. That deference from creatures that hadn't deferred to much of anyone after their infection.

"Mr. Bone," Hermione returned evenly, matching his stance by turning her attention to the statue. With the mental discipline that made her an excellent Occlumens, she pointedly did not allow her imagination to paint Harry's features of that of the fallen hero.

"I trust that Revelin is enjoying himself, managing your little shop. He's of the kind that needs projects to keep himself busy. He's been at ends these past decades." Though his tone was bland, Hermione picked up a faint sense of smugness. Recalling Revelin's intention of thwarting Bone's expectations, Hermione was startled to find herself amused at the realization that Revelin had only played directly into them instead.

"What was he doing before?" Hermione asked curiously.

"Something singularly foolish, which I put a stop to. But you did not come here to speak about Revelin." Reaching into the pocket of his shirt, he retrieved a folded sheet of paper and handed it to her without turning in her direction.

Unfolding it, brow furrowed, Hermione was faintly bemused to find a list of names. But only for a moment. The air around them changed in quality with an unspoken muffling spell, causing her next words to fall strangely flat in such a tall, spacious room. "These...," she breathed, "are these the men...?"

"Indeed," Bone replied dryly.

"Have you already...?"

"We have done nothing. For now, we are satisfied in knowing the identity of our prey. They have grown more cautious since we took one of them. However, should they attempt to abduct another of us..."

Hermione licked her suddenly dry lips. "I understand." And well did she understand her position. She was again nothing more than a witness. With no evidence permissible in court, her hands were legally bound, but morally she couldn't allow a coven of wizards to do whatever they wished, just because the law could not touch them. She glanced at the list again, trusting to her infallible memory, then, with a glance around the near empty gallery to be certain there were no overcurious Muggles, she drew her wand and obscured the writing on the page before tucking it into her briefcase.

"Is there anything else I can do for you this evening, Mr. Bone?" she inquired.

"Revelin has relayed your desire to understand vampire society. I have considered the wisdom of this for several days now. Not all of us are so charismatic as Revelin, as utilitarian as Lloyd, or as docile as your bartenders. Perhaps, given more exposure to the uglier element of our nature, you will decide we are the monsters you have found in your books and unworthy of aid of any kind, except help to the grave."

Hermione made to make an indignant protest, but Bone held up a hand, forestalling her. "I am aware, Miss Granger, that you believe yourself immeasurably open-minded. However, this is not an insult. I, myself, have killed my kind without number, because I knew them to be a danger to not only wizardkind, but also to my own species. Masters and Sires can control these bestial vampires, but they are still unsuitable for the kind of study you wish to conduct. What you wish to encounter are vampires still capable of individuality. If you can accept that it will be I who chooses your subjects, you may study the vampires I send to you at length."

Hermione considered his offer, recalling Lloyd's horror when she had proposed what would have been a door-to-door campaign, entering known vampire territories in the hope of securing interviews with the inhabitants. From everything she had learned thus far, control seemed to be the overwhelming theme of that society-deviations from routine or protocol upset Lloyd and Revelin both, though they expressed it differently.

It seemed that this would be her best option for the moment, though she still entertained the dream of being allowed access to the vampire culture at large. "I understand," she murmured softly, for the second time that evening.

"See that you do, Miss Granger," Bone said dryly. "I will send them to your Sanguine."

"When?" she prodded.

"In time," Bone replied. "Have a pleasant evening, Miss Granger," he bid her before he began strolling out of the gallery.

Sighing, Hermione ruthlessly plucked the pins from her bun, her wild hair rejoicing in its escape, but her scalp twinged in protest at the added weight. _I'll have to let Harry know._

-X-X-X-

Harry was an excellent host in many respects. Aunt Petunia's early training, though not meant as a kindness, had well prepared him to receive just about anyone into Grimmauld Place. When Mrs. Weasley came to call, he paid careful attention to his housekeeping, when it was Ron, the attention turned to Kreacher's menu.

When receiving Hermione, a frantic search commenced for books left lying about the house, or improperly shelved in his library, though he always left out one or two on Quidditch or some new defense work to give Hermione the impression that he was "not letting his mind go to waste, as Ron was" (her shrill words, spoken in a fit of temper when Ron had carelessly remarked that she was as "bloody boring as she was in school" and the comment had gotten round to her). And he did intend to read them, he simply found his time lately in short supply, the Auror training program being even more rigorous and demanding than McGonnagal had warned him in his sixth year.

Though Hermione had received employment in her department of the Ministry almost immediately after taking what amounted to summer courses and receiving N.E.W.T. scores that ranked among the likes of Tom Riddle and Albus Dumbledore. Though, as he'd playfully pointed, out, neither of them had managed to also fight a war and vanquish a dark lord within the same year they'd taken their exams, so they ought to invent a special grade above O for her. Hermione had flushed so scarlet that it was a wonder she hadn't fainted.

By contrast, his career was far from being established. The Auror training program itself was a four year course, then there would be a further two years of field study under a senior officer. But Harry applied himself with a diligence that would have made Hermione herself proud, for just as she saw much to be desired in the legal system, he could see much room for improvement in the magical law enforcement community. It was a bit embarrassing to admit, now that he belonged to the department, but competent Aurors like Kingsley were the exception rather than the rule.

Or perhaps that wasn't quite true. The Auror department itself was highly competent, thanks to the strict requirements for entry, but they were also rule bound, inflexible, and seemingly incapable of independent thought.

He'd thought magical law enforcement would be more like the crime series on the telly, where crime labs didn't have a backlog and data analysis took no longer than a few conversations. After all, even if computers had limits, magic shouldn't.

Such hadn't been the case. Magical law enforcement leaned heavily on the old justice formulas, namely detaining suspects and interrogating them by use of magic. Witnesses were favored over evidence and one's status and reputation could protect them from both punishment and accusation.

Though the Wizarding world in the U.K. had no hereditary titles, there were magically entailed estates and families with crests, signet rings, and bound servants, which made the titles themselves simply superfluous. It was, quite frankly, an aristocracy of magic. While in the Muggle world the possession of land had been the basis for feudalism, it was the possession of magic that crafted the aristocracy of wizards. One was born with magic, but not with the knowledge of how to bend it to useful purposes. That knowledge was hoarded up by the great families, increasing their power, standing, and size, as newcomers to the magical world had to swear themselves into apprenticeship and therefore into the families to learn magic.

Opening Hogwarts had revolutionized the magical world, opening a basic level of magical competence to everyone born with magic, but going no further than that. There were no Wizarding universities. For knowledge beyond the Hogwarts level, one still had to seek knowledge from a keeper of it, for very, very few people were like Hermione, able to so readily absorb spells from books. It wasn't just the pronunciation, like she insisted, or the wand movements, though those were always difficult to replicate. It was something indefinable, something magical.

Magical objects as well were concentrated among the old families, items with powerful abilities and long histories. And wealth, of course, but unless it was an obscene disparity, such as between the Malfoy and the Weasley families, bloodline and history trumped everything else.

It wasn't as if he didn't respect that system, but it rubbed against the grain to have families such as the Malfoys protected from Ministry raids because spellwrights (the magical equivalent of scientists) weren't obliged to share their discoveries with the Ministry. So, until such time as they chose to publish it at large, people were willing to pay, sometimes dearly, for the right to access the information, which was parted out as the particular spellwright chose and they very often chose to keep the Ministry in the dark.

The irritation he experienced as he reflected on this dissipated as he heard the doorbell. With one last glance over the library, he hurried toward the front of the Grimmauld Place, but Kreacher was already showing Hermione inside.

He had to smile at the politeness shown from each side, recalling how acidly Kreacher had despised Hermione and how much that had changed.

"I hope you're hungry," Harry said, "I think Kreacher's decided we'll be having three courses tonight."

Hermione laughed. "You obviously don't entertain enough, if just me is enough to prompt more than dinner. What are we having?"

"I think we're starting out with a soup, I talked Kreacher out of a fish course, then beef Wellington, followed by an as yet unrevealed dessert. Will that be satisfactory, Mademoiselle?"

Hermione snorted inelegantly. "Harry, you would make a terrible waiter."

"Good thing I've got my day job then, isn't it?"

"Yes," she agreed wryly.

"Well then, instead of lingering in the hall, want to go on in to dinner?" he offered her the crook of his arm and, with a laugh, she threaded her arm through his, content to let him escort her into the dining room, which wasn't far from the entryway.

"I've always wondered," she murmured, "if there weren't sealed rooms in this house."

"What do you mean?" he inquired as he pulled out her chair for her, struggling to keep a straight face as she rolled her eyes.

"Well, obviously the Blacks are one of _the _families and yet I've never heard of them having a country seat, so Grimmauld Place must have been their primary residence. And yet, it's so small."

"Well, there isn't a terrible lot of room to be had in London," he reminded her.

"Even so, they weren't Muggles, Harry. It all just seems a bit cramped, is all. And if they had room enough for a gallery of the heads of deceased servants, you'd think they'd keep a portrait gallery, wouldn't you? Especially being wizards. After all, it wouldn't do for Uncle Orion to die without notice and keep all his secrets to himself. Wizarding portraits are supposed to aid a family after their subject dies. Much more convenient than lingering around as a ghost."

Harry raised a brow at her theory. "So you believe there are whole rooms sealed away in this house with magic? And Sirius never bothered to unseal them?"

"Well, Sirius wasn't exactly fond of his own family, was he? He barely kept the house livable as it was. And that's the thing, Harry. These old houses have a way about them of sensing such things. Too much magic worked within the walls. Most of them are quasi-sentient. Not so much as Hogwarts, of course, because that's on a different scale, but I've heard that the houses can actually seal themselves up when the lines in abeyance. Perhaps Grimmauld Place couldn't shut him out entirely, because he was still blood, but Sirius was disowned. If you look at it from the perspective of the house, he would be an unwanted interloper."

Harry frowned. "It makes sense, I suppose," he admitted reluctantly. "If you want to poke about, I've no objections to it, but..."

"Don't expect you to help?" Hermione divined. "Where's your curiosity, Harry?"

"At the same place where my restful night's sleep went, I expect," he retorted dryly. "You're looking better, by the way."

Hermione frowned at him. "Yes. Thank you for sending all those leftovers my way."

"Well, I wouldn't have been a very good friend if I let you starve yourself to death."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "I would have done no such thing."

"Hermione...," sighing, Harry abandoned the topic, which might have led to uncomfortable places for him as well. Why Hermione did not eat, why he couldn't sleep, they probably were of the same root cause. Harry doubted she'd even unpacked her little beaded bag, Phineas Nigellus's portrait still absent from the wall where she'd taken it. Even though the war was over, on many fronts it was still being fought. For him, for Hermione, for Ron.

Harry escaped the fear by fighting it, day by day, in his job as an Auror. Hermione buried hers in paperwork. Ron pretended that the fear did not exist.

They all soldiered on as best they could, alone. It was not Hogwarts anymore, where they spent the better part of their day, every day, by each other's side. They had new friends, new acquaintances, new lives that did not hinge on each other.

"I have to appear before the Wizengamot tomorrow," Harry told her. Hermione made a noise of interest, her mouth too full to answer properly, so he continued, "They're assigning us provisional partners for Auror training, which means we've finally covered enough basic protocol to begin some practical training. Before that happens, we're sworn in as trainees before the Wizengamot and we have to take a wand oath of secrecy."

"Are you nervous?" Hermione asked.

"Well, as this time I'm not on trial, not so nervous as the last time I had to face down the Wizengamot. Of course, this time I have to attend in full dress, so..."

Hermione giggled behind her hand. As a holder of an Order of Merlin herself, Hermione owned the same ceremonial robes. There was a mantle of royal purple satin, fully lined with white silk taffeta. The mantle was accompanied by a collar, which for the Order of Merlin, First Class, featured the sword Excalibur, which was worn so that it fell between the shoulder blades, representing the blade being sheathed, except in the state of war, in which case the collar was turned so that the sword dangled in front.

It looked atrocious on Ron with his red hair, but while Hermione wore it well and she insisted he did too, Harry really felt the color was a bit much. "Don't laugh," he told her seriously. "My partner isn't part of an Order, so there he'll be in sober black dress robes and there I'll be, looking like a poorly transfigured eggplant. With big white bows."

"Well, the colors a bit off for eggplant," Hermione offered, still trying unsuccessfully to smother her mirth. "It _is _a great honor, you know."

Harry scoffed. "Hardly. Fudge had an Order of Merlin."

"Yes, well, but because it will be you wearing it, it will be an honor, whomever wore it in the past notwithstanding."

"You say that because you haven't had to wear them since the presentation."

Hermione made a face at him. "And you've never had to present a case to the Wizengamot. I think we'll call it even. What's your partner like?"

"Cecil? He's a good enough bloke. Bit older than us, but that's not unusual. Most of the recruits are well into their twenties. He was a Ravenclaw in Hogwarts, graduated in the top ten percent of his class. After Hogwarts, he went to work for a private cursebreaking firm. His specialization is the old Celtic stuff, I think, but I couldn't say for certain. He speaks Cymraeg, that's-,"

Hermione cut him off impatiently, "Welsh, I know, Harry."

"Yes, well, he speaks Welsh and that's pretty much all I know about him."

Hermione hummed thoughtfully. "Do you think you'll get on?"

Harry shrugged. "We'll see. It's not as if there's much choice. The recruitment's selective, so even this preliminary group is small. And they've already announced that all of us won't make it. So? What news from the front?"

Hermione's lips thinned out into an expression that wasn't quite a frown. "That's actually what I came here to talk to you about, Harry." She reached into her pocket and produced a folded sheet of paper, which she handed over.

One eyebrow raised, he unfolded, skimming its contents to find it contained a list of names. "What is this?"

"The members of the coven that was abducting vampires."

Harry's head jerked up and he half-stood from his seat. "Where did you get this?" he demanded, mind racing with the possibilities.

"A vampire," Hermione replied, fixing him with an icy stare. "Sit _down_, Harry. It's not as if they're about to endanger their position by hunting them."

"Then what do you mean to do with this list?" he hissed at her.

"Nothing, for the moment," she replied. "But you-perhaps you could poke around a bit? There has to be a spell or _something_. We can't just let them get away with it."

With a sigh, Harry slumped back into his seat, regarding the list more seriously. "We're not underage children anymore," he told her wearily, "'poking around' could get me prosecuted."

"That never stopped you before-we could have been expelled a dozen times over, Harry!"

"Hermione...," Harry turned his eyes away from her earnest expression. "Alright. But on one condition. You have to tell me where you live."

"Harry..."

"Don't Harry me. I just want to make sure you're living well," he said, making certain his expression was firm.

Finally, after holding his gaze for more than a minute, Hermione conceded. "Oh, alright," she said sourly. "But you can't tell Mrs. Weasley. Or there will be no peace."

"It can't be that bad," Harry said with exasperation.

It was only after dinner that he discovered that, yes, it could be that bad.

"Why," he asked with great composure, "have you taken me to Knockturn Alley?"

"Harry, you promised," she murmured. "And keep your voice down."

"When you told me, 'Harry, don't you dare say anything,' I assumed your house would be dusty, not that it would be _in Knockturn Alley,_" he said peevishly, glancing around the street for he knew not what.

"We're almost there," Hermione murmured, sweeping past him and his hand automatically reached out, tucking her arm firmly through his, as if something might leap out of a darkened alley and snatch her away if she went more than two steps from him. Hermione's glance mingled fondness and irritation, but she didn't pull away. Instead, she simply used the point of contact to lead him quite forcefully toward a particular building.

It was tall, for a building in Knockturn, and looked a bit more reputable than its neighbors, though that was no mystery, seeing as how all the windows were intact and it was lighted within. In proud gold-painted letters it declared itself the _Phial & Philter. _"A potions shop?" he inquired uncertainly.

"Yes," Hermione replied, with more determination than eagerness in her voice. "You asked to see my home, Harry." They reached the door and Hermione slipped her arm from his. Gesturing inside, she asked, "Won't you come in?"

Warily, Harry stepped inside, not certain what to expect. On one hand, this was Hermione's home, which meant it should be nothing more fearsome than a collection of books it would have taken any other witch a lifetime to accumulate. On the other, it appeared to be a working potions shop in an Alley infamous for dealing in banned materials.

The clerk behind the counter seemed the very definition of unalarming, but less benign was the other clerk, who stopped his activity to glance at them, revealing golden, almost bestial eyes set in a lean body that was almost the very image of a skilled duelist, the movements he had stilled smooth and quick. Hermione's eyes searched out the shop, but he couldn't guess what she was looking for. Pulling Harry inside, she said, with a smile, "Harry, meet Mr. Montjoy," and the elderly clerk ducked his head, "and Mr. Pennelegion."

The bearded clerk greeted him warmly. "Good evening, Mr. Potter. Welcome to the Phial & Philter."

"Ah." The small sound drew Harry's gaze to the stairs. The figure he found there made his eyes widen slightly, for he was more than half certain the stranger was a vampire and not of the order of Lloyd. "Bringing home a guest, Miss Granger? Or are you simply no longer ashamed to admit to our acquaintance?" He seemed almost teasing as he said the last sentence. Apparently finding Harry's presence no longer remarkable, the two clerks resumed what they'd been doing.

"What is this?" he whispered to Hermione.

"They're my staff, Harry," Hermione replied. She grinned at him. "Welcome to the Phial & Philter."

A/N: The Order of Merlin in canon was similar to the Order of the British Empire, or so it was suggested on the wiki, so I faithfully reproduced most the regalia of a chivalric order. Because I believe that if I get to set a fic in England, I should be entitled to a little pomp and circumstance. The mantle, for anyone not familiar with this kind of regalia, looks like an unhooded cloak with a slight collar, the device of the order depicted on the left side, and the collar is a kind of chain, the links worked with some design particular to that particular order that it represents, like an oversized necklace.

Well, readers are familiar with the drill: the more reviews you leave, the more likely this story is the one updated next. Woo me with your words.


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